Phoenix Rising
by Daffodil3126
Summary: Katie's life in Mystic Falls was quiet, but when the Salvatore brothers come to town her life becomes a roller coaster ride of love, loss, vampirism and reincarnation. Will she get buried by the life that has beaten her down or will she rise from the ashes and finally soar? 1st(Damonxoc) 2nd(Tylerxoc) 3rd(Elijahxoc) 4th(Klausxoc) endgame:(Klausxoc).
1. Chapter 1

**Phoenix ****Rising**

Katie Finnegan's house sat on a beautiful street lined with beautiful houses. It was actually right down the street from her best friend Elena's. Elena had recently lost her parents and was now under the guardianship of her aunt Jenna. It was a bleak situation, but one that Elena and her brother Jeremy could with time bounce back from with the loving support of their aunt. Katie on the other hand had long been plagued by the loss of her parents who died from a cause unknown to her when she was just ten years old.

Unlike Elena and Jeremy, Katie didn't have any loving aunts or uncles to take her in. All she had was the abusive grandfather who she had never even met despite the fact that he lived in the same town that she did. She didn't even know what he looked like until he showed up on the doorsteps of her parents house with a suitcase and two moving trucks. One was for her parents stuff to be packed up and auctioned off and the other was full of his.

Only after he showed up did she realized that she had seen him around town, but her parents never acknowledged him. At first she couldn't understand it. For the first few months he was okay. He didn't talk to her or play with her much but that was fine with her since she was always good at playing by herself, but once the social workers stopped coming by to make sure she was settling in okay, things started taking a turn for the worse. If she accidentally spilled her drink or dropped even a crumb he would lash out at her. Then she started understanding why her mother ran away with her father at the age of seventeen.

As she got older she got to know how to stay out of his way when he was sober, but when he was drunk there was no avoiding him. By the time she was seventeen she was sneaking out of the house on weekly biases just to get away from him. She thought over the years that her friends, Elena, Caroline and Bonnie would have figured out what was happening to her at home, but they never did. She became too good at hiding it and brushing off the bruises and cuts as her being clumsy. So they never asked more and she never told. She put on a good face and acted like every other sporty teen age girl looking forward to getting into collage on a scholarship. She dreamed of the day she could leave Mystic Falls in her rear view and never look back.

**Ch. 1**

Katie Finnegan's sat at the dimly lit roll top desk, in her bedroom writing in a spiral notebook that had the word journal written on the front cover in black ink. Her auburn waves, tamed with just the right amount of styling product, hung around her face and she tucked one tendril behind her ear then pushed her glasses up her nose and continued writing. "Today was the second day of school. Summer is officially over, no more avoiding my friends as much as possible. I saw Caroline and Bonne at cheer camp, but Elena didn't make it this year. So it's back to the real world. And the real world has given us high school girls some new eye candy. His name is Stephan and he already has eyes only for Elena. Although, it seems like Caroline is going to give her a run for her money. She's already practically stalking the guy. I'm supposed to be getting ready to go to the stupid back to school bonfire tonight, but I don't really want to go. Why would I? It's just going to be a bunch of people getting drunk and hooking up and that will just remind me that no one wants to be with me. I'm invisible. Sometimes I think I'm just a ghost that only my friends can see and sometimes even they don't see me. I'm not looking forward to sneaking out tonight. Last time I got caught Grandpa nearly beat me to death. But I have to go tonight otherwise I will never hear the end of it from Caroline in the morning. So I'll talk to you later journal."

Katie tucked the pen inside, closed the book and pushed it away from her. With a sigh she pulled on a pair of dark wash holy jeans, a black ac dc tank top and her favorite black leather jacket that she'd found for a good price at the local resale shop. She finished the look off with red converse and touch of tastefully smudged eyeliner.

With tentative steps she pushed open her bedroom window and eased herself out onto the roof. After glancing over the edge to make sure her grandpa wasn't waiting for her at the bottom like the last time, she started climbing down the surprisingly strong rose trellis. Now that she was safely out of the house she put her car into neutral and pushed it a few blocks away then started it and headed to the party.

The party was what she expected it to be and after drinking a few cups of beer and having a few laughs with Bonne, she decided to stop, otherwise she wouldn't be able to climb back up to her room. She was tossing her empty cup into the trash when she spotted Stephan, who had taken up most of Elena's time, near the treeline watching her talk to her ex boyfriend Matt. Excusing herself from Bonnie who was telling her how she saw a crow when she touched Elena's hand she headed over to Stephan. "Hey." She greeted him with a small smile that he returned with his own greeting as if he didn't want to talk to her. "Don't worry unlike every other girl at this party I'm not going to throw myself at you." She laughed as she moved to stand a few feet beside him, making Stephan surprisingly give her a laugh and a genuine smile. "I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Katie, Elena's friend." She informed him. "I saw you over here looking all jealous and I figured I'd let you know that you don't need to be."

"Yeah, why's that?" He asked turning toward her without moving his feet as he stuffed his hands in his pocket.

"I know it's not my place to say and I'm sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, but...she's over Matt. Has been for a long time now. She just couldn't make herself hurt him." She answered. "She's sweet like that."

"Well, you're..."

"Weird." She finished since it seemed like he was looking for the right word to describe her.

"I was going to say forward, but weird works." He laughed. "You know, you're the first girl that's hasn't tried to hit on me since I got to this school. It's kinda nice, but I don't get it." He looked at her with pursed lips and puzzled eyes. "Why are you trying to help me get the girl instead of trying to get me like everyone else?" Stephan asked.

"Because I'm weird." Katie answered as if she were trying to sound mysterious then laughed. "Na, it's really because I knew I didn't stand a chance." She answered as she dropped her eyes to the ground then got quiet for a second. "And also because she's one of my best friends and she's had a hard year. She could use a little happiness."

"How do you know I'll make her happy?" He asked with a tight lipped smile.

Katie glanced up at where Matt and Elena had been to see that Matt was gone and Elena was looking at the two of them. "Because," she started then turned to look at Stephan across her shoulder, "now she's the one looking jealous."

She was pretty sure that once Stephan looked at Elena he forgot all about her. So she went back to the party, meeting Bonnie at the top of the small hill. "Hey, where you goin'?" Bonnie asked when Katie walked past her.

"The grill. I need coffee if I'm going to sober up enough to get home before Grandpa leaves for work and realizes my car isn't there." She replied and kept walking.

"Okay, we'll meet you there later." Bonnie called after her and Katie waved over her shoulder letting her friend know she heard her.

After getting a hot coffee Katie chose a table outside and pulled the book they had been assigned for English out of her bag. She was half way through the assigned chapters when sirens started blaring and cop cars sped past the grill toward the party. After they passed out of sight her phone vibrated and she looked at the screen to see a text from Bonnie that said, "Vicki was attacked by an animal."

She didn't have enough minutes left on her phone to text Bonnie back, so she called her since it was free. "Hey, what do you mean she was attacked by an animal? Is everyone okay?"

"I don't know, Elena and Jeremy found her in the woods with some kind of bite on her neck. No one else seems to be hurt, but their putting Vicki in an ambulance right now." Bonnie answered sounding worried and tense.

"Oh my god, do I need to come back?" Katie pressed her fingertips to her lips not knowing what else she could say.

"No, me and Caroline are about to head your way. We're gonna sober up while we wait for news." Bonnie told her.

"Okay, just...stay safe okay?" She got a positive answer from Bonnie then hung up the phone. Not being able to read anymore she tucked the book into her bag and focused on sipping the still hot coffee. Ten minutes later Bonnie pulled up and parked in front of the grill. They got a table inside and the other two girls ordered coffee.

"Why didn't he go for me?" Caroline asked sounding whinier than usual, clearly talking about Stephan. "How come the guys that I want never want me?"

"I'm not gonna touch that one." Bonnie answered.

Caroline looked to Katie for answers. "Yeah, I'm not answering that either."

"I'm inappropriate. I always say the wrong thing..." She started listing off the things wrong with herself. Katie pulled a I'm gonna keep my mouth shut look and took a sip of luke warm coffee. "And Elena always says the right thing. God, she doesn't even try and he just picks her. She's the one that everyone picks for everything. I try... SO hard and I'm never the one."

"It's not a competition." Bonnie said looking at Katie for back up.

"Sorry, Bon, but sometimes it kinda feels like one." Katie said with a shrug.

"See." Caroline said with a motion to Katie. "Thank you."

After things calmed down and Caroline sobered up a little, Bonne left the table to go pay the bill. Katie looked up from her empty cup and noticed Caroline smiling at someone and followed her gaze to a dark haired, ice blue eyed, gorgeous guy who was smiling back at her. "Looks like you found someone to like you back." Katie told Caroline with a grunt as she slid out of the chair and grabbed her bag. "Tell Bonnie I said good night."

"I will." Caroline replied not breaking eye contact with the guy. Katie just rolled her eyes and walked away.

She managed to sneak successfully back into her room and sat down at her desk, pulling her journal out and flipping to a fresh page. "Well the party was as I predicted it would be, except Vicki Donovan got attacked by some kind of animal. I wasn't there to see it, but it was apparently pretty bad. After the party Caroline, Bonnie and I met up at the grill to sober up. I got to listen to Caroline complain about how she never gets the guy and Elena gets everything. Of course right after this conversation she catches some super hot, blue eyed guy's attention. Like, I can't stress enough how hot this guy was. The contrast of his dark hair and ice blue eyes was enough to make a girls heart melt, not to mention the cute smirk he was giving Caroline. I hate to sound like Caroline, but why don't guys ever look at me? I mean I may not be crazy beautiful like Elena, Bonnie and Caroline, but I don't think I'm ugly either. Maybe that's why, because no one notices average. And that's exactly how I would categorize myself. Whatever, who needs a guy anyway? All they bring is trouble. I need sleep. Ttyl Journal."


	2. Chapter 2

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 2**

After a mundane day at school Katie went to work at The Mystic Grill. "You and Stefan talked, all night?" She heard Caroline asking Elena as she walked up to their table outside with their order and set it on the table before she joined them. "There was no sloppy first kiss or touchy feely of any kind?"

"Nope. We didn't go there." Elena answered as she folded a flier for the comet party that was happening in the town square tonight.

"Wait, what did I miss?" Katie asked, confused.

"Stefan came by Elena's last night to make sure she's okay." Bonnie answered. "Apparently they didn't do anything."

"What, why not? He's hot." Katie asked in disbelief.

"I don't know." Elena laughed dismissively.

"Elena come on we're your friends. You're supposed to share the smut." Caroline argued.

"We just talked for hours." Elena argued not looking at her friends.

Katie and Bonnie shared a smile at Caroline's prying. "Okay what is with the blockage? Just jump his bones already. It's easy." Katie picked up a flyer and folded it as she listened to Caroline. "Boy likes girl, girl likes boy, sex."

"Profound." Elena commented still not looking at Caroline, but she stopped mid fold and looked to be in thought for a second before she tossed the piece of paper on the table and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Katie asked noticing Elena's sudden change of action.

"Caroline's right. It is easy. And if I sit here long enough I'll end up talking myself out of it instead of doing what I started the day saying I was going to do." She grabbed her bag and walked off.

"Well that's a change." Katie said as she grabbed her pen and order pad and stood up. "It's good to see her half way happy again, but I need to get back to work before they fire my sorry ass." Her two friends just smiled and shook their heads as she headed back inside.

Later, while her friends and everyone else gathered outside to watch the comet Katie stood behind the bar at the grill. She had just given a customer their nachos when the super hot guy that caught Caroline's eye the other night sat down and ordered a drink. "Here you go." Katie said, trying to sound chipper and not the least bit nervous as she placed a napkin down on the bar in front of him and set the glass of bourbon on it.

"You're one of Elena's friends, right?" He asked as he slid the glass closer then picked it up and took a drink.

"Uh, yeah." She answered surprised that he had even noticed her. "How do you know Elena?" She drawled out the question then realized how rude she had sounded and added, "If you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all." He told her with a smile that made his blue eyes brighter then took another sip of his drink. "She came by my uncle's house earlier today to see my brother."

"Oh, okay. Stefan mentioned that he lived with his uncle, but he never mentioned a brother." She said as she leaned a hip against the bar and crossed her arms over her chest.

"We don't really get along. It's complicated." He answered. "I'm Damon." He reached his hand across the bar.

Katie took it without a second thought. "Katie." She shook it once then let go.

He was taking another sip when Vicki walked out of the bathroom and looked at him with a slack jaw and a confused face. "I know you."

Damon looked at her. "Well that's unfortunate."

Vicki walked around the bar, a little closer as she blinked in confusion. "I...I don't know how, but...your face..." Katie looked back and forth between the two of them, curiously. "I'm sorry, excuse me."

Damon looked back at Katie with wide eyes. "Well that was weird."

"She's probably just high again." Katie popped off before her boss called her name. "Duty calls." She sighed and patted the bar as she pushed her hip off of it. "It was nice meeting you, Damon."

Before she could move her hand from the bar Damon grabbed it and brought it to his lips. "Nice to meet you too, Katie." He gave her a small smile, kissed the back of her hand then let it go.

She felt herself blushing as she headed to the back where she knew her boss would be. "Look," she started as soon as she saw her, "You were here all day almost every day during the summer and now you are here every day from the time you get out of school to closing. I can't keep paying you overtime and Vicki needs to start pulling her weight. So go have some fun for once. Vicki's going to cover your shift."

"Fine." She sighed and started undoing the strings of her apron as she headed to the hook then hung it up. When she walked out of the back she hoped to see Damon still sitting at the bar, but he was no where to be seen. So she headed to the table where Elena, Caroline, Jeremy, Matt and Tyler sat arguing about something.

"How about all of you shut up and help me find my sister." Matte said. He turned to Katie as everyone split up. "Have you seen her?"

"Not since about ten minutes ago." She told him with a shake of her head. "I'll help you look outside." She followed him out to the square then went separate ways.

She was doing a glance over of the square when she thought she heard a faint scream and looked up to see two people standing at the edge of the roof of a building, their backs illuminated by the streetlights. "What the hell?" She whispered as she took off toward the building. After running around the perimeter of the building she finally found a ladder that led to the roof and started climbing.

"You know what? Let her go. Let her tell everyone that vampires have returned to Mystic Falls." She heard Stefan's voice and followed it quietly. "Let them chain me up and let them drive a steak through my heart. At least then I'd be rid of you."

She eased her head around the big metal air conditioning unit that she was hiding behind to see Stefan and Damon arguing while Vicki cried on the gravel roof top. "Huh. Wow." Damon said with a look at his brother then moved down to Vicki and gently pulled her to him by her arm. "Come here, sweetheart. It's okay." He leaned down and whispered something in her ear and she stopped crying.

He stepped back and motioned to her then to Stefan before she looked around her and asked, "What happened? Where am I?"

"You okay?" Stefan asked and Vicki looked up at him.

"I took some pills man. I'm good." Vicki laughed.

Seeing that she was okay, Katie came out of hiding and ran over to the girl. "Vicki, hey, everyone's been looking for you." She placed her hand on Vicki's arm just for her to pull away. It was no surprise, the two weren't exactly friends. "Come on, let's go take care of those stitches." She gave Vicki a jerk of her head as she glared at the two guys on the roof who just looked back at her. Damon gave her a smirk when her eyes landed on him and she found herself no longer fooled by how cute he was because if she had heard them right they were talking about how they were vampires. They were crazy.

After delivering Vicki to Matt with Stefan strangely by her side, telling them some story about how he found her wondering around on the roof, Katie told everyone goodnight and went home. "Where the hell have you been?" Her grandpa asked as soon as she walked into the front door that led straight into the living room. His slurred words told her that he was drunk and the best thing to do was answer with one word and make a mad dash up the stairs.

"Work." With her head down she started for the stairs.

"Bullshit!" He yelled and chased after her, but she was already half way up the stairs that he could never conquer when he was this drunk. So he thankfully gave up and Katie disappeared into her room.

She tossed her bag to the floor near her desk with a sigh then moved to the stereo on her headboard that doubled as a book shelf and turned it up, blaring the local rock station. Her uncle yelled at her to turn it down, but times like these were the only times that she could blare the music because her grandpa was too drunk to do anything about it.

Needing to relax she took her long, auburn hair out of the tight ponytail that was giving her a headache and sat down at her desk as she shook out her thick waves, sighing at the relief. Thinking about what she had heard Stefan and Damon talking about she woke up her computer and pulled up the web browser. She typed in Mystic Falls and vampires. Nothing came up. She started thinking about Vicki, and trying to figure out why it was her up there with them. Why the girl that had been attacked by an animal at a party that Stefan was at, was on the roof with him and his mysterious brother. So she back spaced over vampires and typed in animal attack instead. A story about Vicki popped up along with a story about two people who were attacked by an animal while camping and a couple who disappeared on their way through. Not finding anything else she brushed it off as her mind running away from her.

After shutting off the computer she pulled out her journal and began writing. "Well, I've had an interesting night. It started when I served Damon, Stefan's older brother and the smoking hot guy that Caroline was eyeing, at the bar last night. This is going to sound pathetic especially considering what I'm going to tell you later in this entry, but I like him and it's not because he's really freaking hot, but because he actually noticed me. Like I said, pathetic. I served him his drink and he struck up a conversation with me. That never happens to me. That was the good part of my night. The bad part happened after I had to leave Damon to talk with my boss who told me I work too much and to clock out and have fun. I didn't have fun. Instead I helped the gang look for the stoner bitch Vicki. I expected her to just be out back getting high or popping pills, but instead I found her crying on top of a roof with Stefan and Damon Salvatore. But the weird thing was Damon and Stefan were talking about being vampires and the town's people staking them in the heart if they found out. I wanted to think they were crazy. I still want to think they are bat shit crazy, but then Damon whispered something in Vicki's ear and she forgot how she even got on the roof in the first place. I know she was high, but I've seen high people before and this was something different. The Salvatore brothers are dangerous and I have no intention of spending time around them if I can help it. I could never talk to my friends about this. I mean, Elena's practically dating Stefan. What am I supposed to tell her, "Hey, your boyfriend and his brother are vampires."? No that would make me sound as crazy as Bonnie's grams...as crazy as I-"

Hearing a thud outside she put down her pen, closed the book and moved to the window to look out. Not seeing anything she slid up the window and leaned out to get a better look. She didn't see anything and was shutting the window when Damon's face appeared right in front of hers causing her to scream and stumble back.

He sighed and put his forehead on the glass. "Calm down and open the window please." He picked up his head and rolled his blue eyes. "No need to be dramatic."

"What? No." She scoffed still stunned to see him on her roof. "How did you even get up here?"

"I jumped." He answered as if it were obvious. "Now open the window."

Katie crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't even know you. What are you doing here?"

"Open the window and invite me in and I'll tell you." He told her with an aggravated, smart-alecky smile.

"What so you can whisper in my ear and wipe my memory like you did to Vicki?" She asked backing away from the window.

"You saw that huh?" He asked sounding like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Yeah, I saw that." She said with a sway of her head.

"Okay, I promise if you let me in that I won't memory wipe you. I just need to know what all you heard tonight and this conversation would be a lot easier if you would just let me in." He said glancing around to make sure no one had seen him.

She realized then that if one of the neighbors saw him outside and told her grandpa she would be in a world of hurt. So she pushed the window up and stepped aside. "Get in here before someone sees you."

"Thank you." He told her as he stuck a leg inside then ducked through the window. "That's better." He straightened his jacket and looked around. "Cozy."

She sat down on her bed, crossing her legs. "So what do you want to know?"

"I want to know exactly what you heard me and Stefan talking about tonight." He said not looking at her but the books that sat along the back of her desk.

"I heard Stefan say that vampires have returned to Mystic Falls and for you to let Vicki go tell everyone about it so that they would drive a stake through his heart and he could finally be rid of you." She said putting it all on the table even though she knew there was about a seventy-five percent chance that he could wipe her memory or simply kill her for knowing something she shouldn't.

"Well, you heard right. I'm a vampire, so is Stefan." He hadn't said anything else and was still looking around her room when he placed his hand on her journal she jumped off the bed and snatched it off the desk before he could open it. He looked at her as if she were a weirdo. "You can snoop through anything in this room, but not this." She turned from him and tucked the book under her pillow.

"Why? Are there naughty thoughts about me in there?" He asked with a smile and a flick of his brow.

"Anyone ever tell you you're cocky?" She asked avoiding his question as she sat back down on her bed.

"Only every day of my life." He said with a sarcastic smile as he finally sat down backwards in her desk chair. "You seem oddly calm for someone with a vampire in their bedroom. So you either don't believe that I could drink you like a human juice box or you do believe me and you just don't care."

"I want to believe you, because I've always had an open mind like that, and I don't have any explanation for what I saw happen with Vicki on that roof, but at the same time I feel like I need better proof because drugs make people do strange things." She answered as she brought her feet up on the bed to sit Indian style.

"You want me to prove to you that I'm a vampire?" He asked and she simply shrugged. "You realize you're practically asking me to feed on you right?" He asked with raised brows and wide eyes.

"Maybe." She said with a shrug. "But that's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" He asked, surprised with himself and the fact that he hadn't just compelled this girl to forget everything she had heard on the roof, but he was actually having fun talking to her. Any other girl would be screaming or running away…or both.

"I don't know, vampires obviously have tricks like whatever you did to Vicki. What else can you do?" She replied looking him up and down almost challengingly. "Oh and is Vicki going to become a vampire? I assume the so called animal attack was really one of you considering she was on the roof with two vampires."

"You're too observant for you're own good." He said with a shake of his head that made it seem like something bad was going to happen to her for knowing too much. "No, bites don't turn you." He answered then looked at her seeming to be in thought. "As for the proof you need from my bag of tricks...here," he held his hand out to her, "give me your hand."

"Are you going to drink my blood?" She asked suspiciously.

"Only if you want me to." He mentally slapped himself. He didn't need her permission, if he wanted it he could take it from her, permission be damned.

"Will it keep you from hurting more people if I do let you have some of my blood?" She asked and he just smirked and shook his head no. "Then no. Are you going to hurt me?" She asked still not placing her hand in his that was still stretched out to her.

"Only a little." He said with a spark of adventure in his light blue eyes. Katie couldn't resist and she placed her hand in his with her palm facing up. "Do you trust me?" He asked with a smile.

"Not one bit, but go ahead anyway." She told him with a wave of her hand.

You're either really brave or really stupid." He commented as he picked up the letter opener off of her desk and with a flick of his hand sliced open the meaty part of her palm between her thumb and wrist. She flinched and sucked in a sharp breath, but otherwise did nothing. He noticed her high tolerance to pain, but didn't comment on it.

When he smiled up at her, blood veins under his eyes popped to the surface and the whites of his eyes turned red. "Does that mean that you're trying to not drink me?" She asked with a motion to his eyes and he smiled, showing off his fangs.

He blinked a few times and the fangs and blood vessels went away. "Yeah, let's go with that." He answered then looked down at her bleeding hand. "Now, here," he bit his wrist and held it over to her, "drink up."

"Ew, no." She shook her head and he rolled his eyes.

"Just do it. You won't turn into a vampire I promise."

"Fine." She wrinkled her nose and instead of sucking on his wrist like he thought she would she caught a thick drop of blood with her tongue then licked over the bite mark to collect the rest of it before the bite healed.

"Now, watch." He nodded to her hand that was still resting in his.

She watched with wide eyes as the gash slowly closed and the pain faded. "Okay, I believe you. You're a vampire." She took her hand from his and ran her finger over the area where the cut had been then turned her eyes to his. "Now what?"

"I don't know yet." He said as he rested his chin on the back of the chair. "Can I trust you not to say anything to any of your little friends?"

"I don't know, can I trust that you won't kill or hurt any of my little friends?" She asked as she scooted back and leaned against the wall.

He thought about it long and hard. As much as he liked this girl, she was still just another expendable human who was also a liability. She knew too much and therefore needed to be taken out of the picture, but something about her made him want to trust her. For the first time in a very long time he didn't want to play with a girl's head. If he did that then she wouldn't really be herself anymore and he probably wouldn't enjoy her company as much. "I promise I won't kill any of your friends. Does feeding on one of them count as hurting? Because I really like Caroline. She seems...easy."

"Yes, it does." She told him with an eye roll as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Then I can't promise not to hurt her." He told her with a big smile.

She just rolled her eyes and shook her head, her eyes catching the time on her alarm clock as she did. "Shit, it's getting late and I have school tomorrow." She said as she slid off the bed and moved to the window. "You should get going." She slid the window up and jerked her head toward it.

"I'm not leaving until you promise me that you won't say _anything_ to _anyone_ about what we are." He said not moving from the desk chair.

"Fine, as long as you don't kill anyone I'll keep your secret." She said with a sigh not sounding like she meant it.

"That doesn't work for me, you have to promise." He said looking down at her with an almost pouting expression.

"Fine, I _promise_ I won't tell." She told him grumpily.

"Thank you." He told her with a small smile then picked up her hand and kissed it where he had cut her before. His eyes turned red and veins popped below them and she watched them disappear as he pulled back and smirked at her. "Goodnight."

**A/N:** Please keep in mind that this is my first vampire diaries fanfic. If I make any grammatical errors please kindly let me know either through pm or in the reviews. I'm also used to writing for more simple universes where witches and vampires, generations of history and magical relics are not involved. Also I am on Season 6 at the moment so please no spoilers in the reviews. Thanks for reading. :-)


	3. Chapter 3

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 3**

The next morning Katie woke up, threw a black tank top and red shorts into her school bag and started down stairs. When she got to the bottom she was met by her grandpa's angry face. "Shouldn't you be at work?" she asked, not knowing what he was still doing home when he usually left before the sun even came up.

"Don't act like you don't know what this is about." He practically growled at her. The furious look in his dark brown eyes made her take a step back up the stairs.

"I swear. I don't know what you're talking about." She said taking another step back.

"Really?" He asked taking a menacing step toward her. "So you didn't let a boy into your bedroom window last night?"

"No, I didn't." She answered with stiffened shoulders and clenched teeth.

He glared at her then the next thing she knew the back of his hand collided with the side of her face, hitting her so hard that her glasses went flying and she fell to the floor. "I will not have a whore living under my roof again." He leaned down and grabbed her face in his large hand, squeezing too tight. "Don't you ever pull that shit again or I'll do more than give you a little slap." He stood up and massaged his hand. "Now get your sorry ass out of my sight."

She picked herself and her glasses up off the floor and rushed to her car. She didn't bother checking her face until she pulled up at the school and parked. The first thing her eyes landed on was a bright red spot in the white of her left eye. She took her glasses off and leaned closer to see that a blood vessel in her eye had popped. "Awesome." She sighed and put her glasses back on, then noticing the very slight tinge of pink on her cheek.

She could only hope that no one noticed so that she wouldn't have to come up with a lie. Finally because she couldn't put it off any longer she hopped out of the car and headed over to Elena and Bonnie who had walked past her. "Is this the whole witch mojo thing again?" Elena asked Bonnie as Katie walked up to them.

"What about witch mojo?" Katie asked as she pushed the strap of her bag further up on her shoulder.

"Bonnie touched Stefan and got a bad feeling." Elena filled her in. "She thinks I should slow things down with him."

"Maybe you should listen to her." Katie said with a shrug. "I mean her _feelings_ have been really accurate here lately." Katie gave Bonnie a smile that told her that she wasn't making fun.

"Not you too." Elena groaned.

"We're just concerned." Bonnie summed it up.

"And I love you two for it." She told them as she placed a hand on each of their shoulders then let them go. "But I feel good. It's been a hard year and I'm kinda starting to feel like things are getting back to normal again. Stefan's a big part of that."

Katie and Bonnie were sharing a look of concern when Stefan walked up. "I'm gonna try to call Caroline. She's not answering her phone." Bonnie said as she started walking off.

"Yeah, I don't have an excuse, but I'm gonna go too." Katie said with motion to the school over her shoulder.

"Katie don't-" Elena started.

"See you later." Katie cut Elena off as she walked away.

Due to Katie having to spend lunch time in math room getting help with what she couldn't understand during the actual class, Katie didn't see Elena or Bonnie until after school, during cheer practice.

Bonnie and Katie were doing stretches when Elena showed up. "Oh my God! You're here." Bonnie yelled as she hopped up and hugged Elena.

"Yeah we didn't think you'd actually show." Katie said as she looked around. "Speaking of no shows, where's Caroline? She never misses practice."

"I don't know. I haven't talked to her all day." Bonnie answered looking around for Caroline.

"Change of subject." Elena said getting her friends attention. "You two are coming to dinner tonight."

"We are?" Bonnie and Katie asked at the same time.

"Mmhmm." Elena said as they all sat down and started stretching again. "You two, me and Stefan."

"I don't think Grandpa is gonna go for that." Katie said avoiding eye contact with her friend.

"Yeah tonight's not good." Bonnie tried to get out of it too.

"You can sneak out, you do it all the time. Your grandpa's oblivious." Elena pointed at her and Katie couldn't help but think about how bad she would get beaten if her grandpa found out about her sneaking out. Elena then pointed at Bonnie, "and you're just trying to get out of it. You're coming, both of you."

"Fine." Bonnie sighed.

Elena turned to Katie with expectant eyes. "I'll see what I can do."

"Seriously, where is Caroline?" Bonnie asked as she grabbed her phone and speed dialed Caroline.

"I don't know. It's not like her." Elena said with a shrug as they heard a car drive up.

"Um, is _that_ Caroline?" Katie asked as a light blue, convertible Camaro parked near them and Katie recognized the driver as Damon. "With Damon Salvatore?"

The three girls stood up as they watched Caroline kiss Damon. "Salvatore, as in Stefan?" Bonnie asked.

"Yeah." Katie answered not looking away from Damon where he still sat in his car wearing sunglasses.

"Wait, how do you know Damon?" Elena asked Katie.

"I met him at the grill the other night." Katie shrugged as if it were no big deal.

Caroline came walking up, "I got the other brother." She said proudly as she walked through the group of friends and looked at Elena, "hope you don't mind." She stood at the front of the group of cheerleaders and started barking out orders. Katie noticed Damon looking at Elena. It wasn't until she looked away that Damon turned his eyes to Katie and gave her a wink. She glared at him with flared nostrils. "Katie!" Caroline snapped getting Katie's attention. "Are you deaf? Get into formation." She tore her eyes from the ever smirking Damon and did as Caroline demanded.

Katie didn't fail to notice the scarf around Caroline's neck or how snotty she was being to Elena. She knew that Caroline felt like she had gotten one up on Elena. She understood how it felt to constantly feel like Elena got everything, but Caroline was taking it to a whole other level of bitch.

After practice was over Katie headed home and showered. Thankfully her grandpa wasn't home, so she could relax as she styled her hair, dressed in a white t-shirt, her black leather jacket, denim jeans and black knee high boots. She finished the look off with a little smudged eyeliner, mascara and clear lip gloss. Her grandpa was driving up as she pulled her car out of the driveway. She knew if he wasn't drunk when she came home that she would be getting another thrashing. She would just have to cross that bridge when she came to it.

When she got to Elena's she saw that Bonnie's car was already parked outside. So she let herself into Elena's like she had done for as long as she could remember. "Hey, guys!" Katie called seeing that they weren't in the living room.

"Hey, we're in hear!" Elena called and Katie followed the direction of her voice to the kitchen.

"Today I'm obsessed with numbers." Bonnie was saying as Katie walked in. "Three numbers. I keep seeing 8, 14 and 22. How weird is that?" Katie sat down on the bar stool across the island from the two other girls.

"Maybe we should play the lottery." Elena quipped earning a glare from bonnie. "Have you talked to your grams?"

"No. She's just gonna say it's because I'm a witch. I don't want to be a witch. Would you guys want to be a witch?" Bonnie asked with a look between her friends.

"I don't wanna be a witch." Elena answered with a grossed out look on her face.

"I don't know. It sounds like it could be fun." Katie answered with a shrug of her shoulders as she looked over the bar at the pasta that Elena was poring into a glass bowl from a take out container.

"You know putting it in a nice bowl isn't fooling anybody." Bonnie and Katie laughed as Elena smiled and shook her head.

"Where are the serving spoons?" Elena asked looking around the kitchen.

"Middle drawer on the left." Bonnie answered quickly.

Elena looked and they were there. "Okay, so you've been in this kitchen a thousand times."

"Yeah…that's it." Bonnie said with a roll of her eyes as the door bell rang.

"Okay, he's here." Elena said perking up as she turned to Bonnie. "Don't be nervous. Just be your normal, loving self." She then turned to Katie and scrunched up her nose. "And you…don't be weird."

Katie started laughing. "But that's my best quality." Elena just gave her a smirk and a pointed look over her shoulder as she headed for the door. Katie then turned to Bonnie who still looked a little freaked out over the serving spoon incident. "Okay, so experiment time." She hopped down off of the stool and went around the island to where Bonnie was standing. "Tell me what's in this drawer." She pointed to the one that was right in front of Bonnie.

Bonnie concentrated then said, "Birthday candles." When she pulled out the drawer a brand new pack of birthday candles sat on top of the other contents.

"I think you just need to accept the fact that you're a witch." Katie patted Bonnie on the shoulder then grabbed the bowls of food and brought them to the dining table.

They were in the middle of awkward conversation revolving around Bonnie and her witchy heritage when they heard the door bell ring. Elena went to answer it leaving the three to sit at the table staring down at their plates. "Surprise." They heard Caroline at the door and Katie looked at Bonnie.

"Did you tell her about tonight?" she asked and Bonnie shook her head no and shrugged. Stefan left the table to see what was up.

After Damon and Caroline came inside they all moved to the living room where they started talking. Katie, no matter how badly she wanted to glare at Damon and Caroline where she sat on Damon's lap, forced herself to smile along with the conversation. But when the topic turned to Elena coming back to the cheer squad the damn holding back Katie's growing anger at Caroline started to break. "Elena wasn't so lucky today. It's only because you missed summer camp." Caroline said smiling at Elena. "God, I don't know how you're ever going to learn the routines."

"We'll work with her. She'll get it." Bonnie spoke up with a look at Katie then another at Elena.

"I guess I can put her in the back." Caroline kept going pretending to be in thought about what to do with Elena. It was really grating on Katie's nerves.

"You don't really seem like the cheerleader type, Elena." Damon said hoping to be able to get Elena to talk.

But Caroline kept going, "Oh, it's just because her parents died. Yeah, I mean, she's just totally going through a blah phase. She used to be way more fun."

The damn broke and Katie stood up from where she sat in the arm chair near the one Caroline and Damon sat on. "Okay, I think you and I need to have a little chat." She grabbed Caroline by her arm and pulled her outside, ignoring Caroline's protests.

"What the hell Katie?" Caroline asked as Katie shut the front door.

"Me what the hell?" Katie asked pointing to herself with a hand on her chest. "No you what the hell? Just because you're dating Damon doesn't mean you get to act like a complete and total bitch. Just because _you_ got the hotter Salvatore brother you think you're _so much_ better than everyone else. I know you always feel like you're in competition with Elena, I get it, I do too. But it's not her fault and you don't need to rub her face in it."

"You know what? You're just jealous that you didn't get _either_ of the Salvatore brothers." Caroline told her with a glare.

"Yeah?" Katie asked as she grabbed the scarf around Caroline's neck and jerked it off. "Why would I want someone that would do _that_ to my neck?" she asked with a point to the bite mark on Caroline's neck. "Why would I want to be a lose bitch like you?"

"At least I'm not a virginal prude!" Caroline yelled as she jerked the scarf out of Katie's hand and frantically started putting it back around her neck.

Before she could finish Katie saw red and slapped Caroline across the face. Caroline stared at her, mouth agape before she grabbed Katie's hair and yanked. Damon and Stefan rushed out of the house after the girls knocked over a vase, shattering it across the porch, and easily pulled the fighting girls apart. Damon held back Katie while Stefan held back Caroline. "What's the matter with you guys?" Elena asked her friends with wide eyes.

"Let go of me, Damon." Katie said, ignoring Elena, as she looked over her shoulder at Damon where he stood behind her with his arms wrapped around her stomach, holding her tightly against him. He gave her a smirk as he took his arms off of her. She straightened her hair and clothes as best she cold then walked over to Elena, past a glaring Caroline. "I'm sorry I ruined the night. I'll buy you a new vase." She then turned to Bonnie, Damon and Stefan who had let go of Caroline. "Good night." She left them and got into her car hoping that her grandpa wasn't going to be home when she got there.

* * *

"Where'd you run off to?" Her grandpa was waiting for her on the porch when she drove up.

"I went to Elena's, we had dinner and studied." She answered seeing the beer in his hand. Unfortunately he wasn't drunk, just buzzed. Her bad night was about to get worse.

"Why should I believe you?" He asked getting up from the porch swing.

"Because it's the truth." She stiffened as he walked slowly over to her where she stood at the door.

"When do you _ever_ tell the truth?" He asked as he grabbed her upper arm, digging his nails into her skin hard enough to hurt, but not pierce the skin. He pulled the door open and dragged her inside. "You went to _his_ house didn't you?"

"Who are you talking about?" She asked with her face twisted in pain.

"You know who I'm talking about you little whore." He threw her onto the floor and she was just happy he was no longer touching her.

"If you don't believe me call Jenna." Elena's aunt Jenna wasn't even there, but Katie knew Jenna was cool. Even if Katie hadn't been there Jenna would cover for her.

"Get your sorry ass out of my sight." He scoffed and grabbed the cordless phone off the arm of the couch.

Katie practically ran up the stairs to her room where she slammed the door and flopped back on her bed. After catching her breath she sat up, turned her stereo on and lowered the volume. Tonight she didn't feel like writing in her journal, so she got straight to homework. It was 11:30 and she was finishing up a history paper when she heard a whoosh then a thud. She wasn't surprised to see Damon outside her window, and she pulled the curtains closed then sat back down at her desk. Instead of going away he pushed the window open himself and came inside. "You know, when a girl closes the curtains it means 'go away' not 'come on in'." she stood up, glaring at him.

"Yeah, well, I don't take no for an answer." He said as he shut the window behind him and smiled at her where she sat at her desk.

"Yeah, well, you need to leave before the neighbors see you and get me in trouble again." She said with a point to the window.

"Come on Katie cat, don't be mad at me." He pouted at her.

"First of all don't call me that and second I'm not mad. I'm pissed at you and mad at my friend and if my grandpa finds out you're in here he'll-" she stopped herself from letting him know exactly what kind of trouble he was going to get her into. She also realized how loud she had started talking.

"Katie!" Her grandpa yelled and she heard him coming up the stairs.

"You need to leave, now." Katie told Damon and gave him a push to the window.

"Why? He can't hurt me." Damon said with a cocky whisper as he stumbled back a bit.

"It's not you I'm worried about." She whispered, hearing Grandpa's footsteps getting closer to her door. "Go!" She whispered and tried to shove him, but he didn't move.

She was still shoving at him when the bedroom door opened. "You tacky little bitch." Before her grandpa could take a step into her room Damon appeared in front of him.

"You are going to forget that I'm in here and anytime you hear me in here in the future you are going to forget all about it and carry on with your night." Grandpa repeated everything Damon said, sounding like a zombie. "Now go to bed." Her grandpa turned around and left. Damon shut the door then turned around and flashed Katie a smile. "Problem solved."

Katie rolled her eyes and sat down on her bed. "I'm still pissed at you."

"Come on, how can you stay mad at this face?" He asked pointing at himself as he smiled again.

"Easy, I remind myself that you are feeding on Caroline after I specifically asked you not to hurt any of my friends." Katie said as she scooted back to lean against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. Damon let his smile fall, looking aggravated. "Why are you with her anyway?"

"I don't know." He shrugged and sat down backwards in the desk chair. "She never shuts up, and I don't see it going anywhere, but she's good in bed so..." he trailed off.

Katie rolled her eyes. "Okay, so you have someone to feed off of and someone to screw so why are you here, Damon? What do you want from me?"

"Your friendship." He said but it sounded more like a question and he looked a little confused. "Someone to hang out with...talk to without having to wipe your memory or play head games." He said with a shrug as if he was embarrassed.

"Right." She said, not believing him, but she couldn't tell him no. What if he decided to hurt her or drink her dry and kill her. "Then let's talk." She motioned for him to start.

"Why'd you pick a fight with Caroline tonight?" He asked with a smirk and a quirk of his brow.

"Teen gossip, really? That's what you wanna talk about?" She asked with raised brows.

"Girl fights are hot." He said with a smile and a shrug.

Katie rolled her eyes. "Fine, I blew up on Caroline because she's been really bitchy since she started dating you. Like she thinks she's better than everyone else because-"

"Because she got the hotter Salvatore brother?" He finished for her revealing that he had heard her when she and Caroline were arguing.

She blushed and scratched at the back of her neck. "You heard that huh?" She asked sheepishly.

"Yep. Tell me, was she telling the truth when she called you a virginal prude?" He asked with a devious smile on his face.

"I'm not answering that." She shook her head making Damon smile.

"Come on, you're on the cheer squad. How virginal can you be?" He asked making her throw a paper ball at him. "Really though, I didn't take you to be the peppy cheerleader type."

"I'm not. Grandpa forced me into it along with soft ball and track. Plus I get to spend time with my friends." She shrugged.

"Yeah your grandpa seems like a class A prick." Damon said putting emphasis on the k at the end of the word prick.

"He is." She said with a nod. "But I might have to quit cheer if Caroline doesn't stop talking down to everyone. I get enough of that here and if she keeps it up I might have to smack her again." Katie admitted.

"He also seems young to be the grandpa of a 17 year old." He added.

"Yeah that's because he and grandma got married and started a family at, like eighteen and then my mother had me when she was really young. Grandpa's in his late forties and goes to the gym three times a week." She answered with a shrug.

Damon got up then sat down on her bed and scooted back to sit next to her, leaning against the wall. Katie glared to him. "What? That chair is uncomfortable."

"Nothing." Katie shook her head.

"Don't quit cheerleading." Damon said without looking at her. "If you quit Caroline wins. Besides, no one likes a quitter." He looked across his shoulder at her and smiled a cheeky smile. "Plus, you looked hot in those little short shorts of yours at practice today." He wiggled an eyebrow at her and bumped her shoulder with his.

"Flirting with me isn't going to get you anywhere." She answered looking down at her hands, picking at her cuticles. "Especially if you keep feeding on my friend."

"Did your grandpa do that to your eye?" Damon asked out of nowhere. Katie didn't answer. No one had ever asked that before, not even Elena or Bonnie. She just stared down at her feet and started picking fuzz off of her socks. "Katie..." he drawled out her name, but she still didn't look at him so he grabbed her chin between his thumb and pointer finger and turned her face to him. "Answer the question." Katie finally nodded. "Do I need to compel him again?"

"No, I'll be fine." Katie answered quietly as she grabbed Damon's wrist and moved his hand from her face. "If I ask you to stop feeding on Caroline will you?" Katie asked knowing what the answer would be, but she hated the fact that he was hurting her and probably compelling her to cover it up and she couldn't stand by and not try to do something about it.

"No." Damon answered as if it was a stupid question.

"Even if I offer you me?" The fact that she wasn't sure if she really wanted what she was offering was clear in her tone. "I know what you are. I've promised not to say anything and so far I've kept up that promise. You won't have to compel me to forget about it and plus side, I've got seven years worth of practice in the art of covering up unexplainable injuries."

When Damon didn't say anything she looked across her shoulder to see him staring at her as if he was trying to figure her out. "Did you just submit a verbal resume to become my own personal juice box?" he asked still glaring at her.

"Um, I guess that's one way to look at it." she answered feeling like a weirdo as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear then looked down at her hands folded in her lap and started picking at her cuticles. "Did I get the job? I'll let you feed on me in exchange for leaving Caroline alone."

"Anyone ever tell you you're weird?" Damon asked with a hit of a smile.

"Only every day of my life." She answered with a smirk, giving him the same answer he had once given her.

"You should be more scared of me than you are." He warned with a glare.

"But I'm not." She countered as she turned her eyes from his to the colorful bubbles floating around on her computer screen.

"Why is that?" he asked. He's seen a lot in his lifetime. Human women begging to let him feed on them while rolling around between the sheets, begging him to turn them with hopes of being together forever, etc, but Katie was just trying to do what was best for her friend, even if it put her in danger. He found himself wanting a friendship like that with her. He couldn't think of anyone he knew that would throw themselves under the bus for him.

"I don't know." Katie shrugged still staring at her computer screen. "Because I'm weird, I guess." It got quiet between them for a while. Katie was lost in thought, hoping she wasn't getting herself in too deep with Damon in order to help her friend. Hoping Caroline wouldn't be too heart broken if she did get Damon to break it off with her. Damon on the other hand was lost in thought about if he wanted to trade sex and fun feeding activities with a cute blond for something probably not as fun with an interesting, auburn haired, virgin. "So, do we have a deal?" Katie finally asked.

"I don't know, I'm still thinking about it. Remind me again why I should trade fun, sexy Caroline for feeding on a girl who's best friend called a virginal prude?" he asked. "Also are you aware that this little deal of yours sounds like you're just trying to get the hotter Salvatore brother all to yourself so you can be the one rubbing everyone's noses in it?"

"First of all, a virgin? Maybe. A prude? No. Second I don't want you all to myself I want you to stop hurting people that I care about. And being with Caroline just so you can use her for sex, blood and brainwashing is hurting her in my book." She answered.

Damon, needing more time to think through his decision, stalled by asking, "So you think I'm hotter than Stefan huh?"

"I thought we already covered that." She answered with creased brows, avoiding the question.

"You're being prudish." He sing songed not looking at her.

She decided that because Damon had such a big head she would mess with him a little bit before she actually answered his question. "You know I only said that because Caroline thinks she got the hotter brother right?" She said earning a 'oh whatever' look from Damon. "Stefan has the hair, the boy band face, the heart warming smile, the forest green eyes and the cute butt. He's romance novel hot."

"Okay, so you like Stefan better. I get it." He whined not happy to hear her talking about his brother.

"I didn't say that." She smiled with a shake of her head.

"Well that's what it sounded like." He rested his head back against the wall.

"You didn't let me finish. He's hot, but he also seems like he can be a stick in the mud." She looked at Damon across her shoulder to see him looking down at her with his head still leaning against the wall. "Green eyed boy band doesn't really do it for me."

Damon smirked at her realizing she had been messing with him. "Then what _does_ do it for you?"

"Icy blue eyes," She started, still looking at him, "that stand out against dark brown, slightly unkempt hair, a bright smile that makes me want to smile," Damon smiled a little bigger, "and muscles that are there, but aren't so big that they scare the shit out of me."

Testing the waters, Damon reached over and slid his fingertips over the back of her hand. She didn't pull away so he flipped her hand over and started drawing nonsensical shapes and swirls on her palm. "Deal."

"You know I'm not going to have sex with you just because I find you sexy right?" She asked, surprised yet happy that he would trade Caroline for her. "We can have fun if you want to, but my bottoms are staying on."

"I know." He told her still playing with her hand. "And trust me, I want to."

Her stomach tumbled and her cheeks flushed at his confession. "And you know that breaking up with Caroline and letting her down easy is a non negotiable part of the deal?"

"Yep." He popped the p at the end of the word.

"Then deal." She said as she pushed herself off the wall and turned to face him with her legs tucked under her as she held out her hand for a hand shake.

"Nu uh." Damon sat up as he smirked at her. "That's not how I seal a deal." He placed his hand on her neck and ran his thumb over her jaw line as he leaned into her. He could hear her heart beat increase as her eyes slipped closed and he pressed his lips to hers. She didn't kiss him back right away, making Damon realize that if she was a virgin that she might not have ever kissed anymore before. But when she placed her hand on his chest and started kissing him back, he lost all train of thought for a second.

He had eased her back on the bed and was kissing her neck as he slid his hand up her side closer and closer to her breast when her train of thought pulled itself from the wreckage Damon's kiss had cause. "Whoa, hey, slow down there cowboy." She placed her hand on his chest and pushed him back.

He didn't have to respond to her push, but he did. "Yes?" he sighed.

"Break it off with Caroline first." She told him with a frown. "I'm not going to have fun with you while you're still with my best friend." She told him and he sighed and let his head fall to rest on her chest. "Let me see or hear you break it off with her without making her feel like she did something wrong, then we'll talk about how far I'm willing to let this," she motioned between them, "go."

"Why do you women always have to make things difficult?" He complained as he sat up and pulled out his phone.

"Stop whining. You knew I had morals when you made this deal." She popped off.

"I don't whine." His pouty tone made her smile.

"Sure you don't." She noticed that he was calling Caroline. "Put it on speaker and don't mention me. No one needs to know about us."

He pressed the call button then put it on speaker. It rang four times before Caroline answered sleepily. "Hello?"

"Caroline, Sweetheart." He answered with a smile in his voice.

"Damon?" She asked with a yawn. "Its 12:00 in the morning. Is everything okay?"

"No." Damon answered and Katie mouthed the words 'be nice', to Damon. "You see, I've been thinking about us and it's just not working for me."

"What? Why not?" She asked and Katie felt a pang of guilt shoot through her chest at the hurt tone of Caroline's high pitched voice. "What did I do wrong?"

Damon saw Katie's pained expression. "Nothing. Okay? You did nothing wrong. It's me. You're simply too good for me." Katie dropped her eyes to her hands and started picking at her cuticles. "I'm no good, I'd only hurt you in the long run and you deserve someone that will treat you right."

"I don't understand. I-" she started.

"I'm sorry Caroline, but we're over." He hung up the phone knowing Caroline would just drag it out if he didn't. "Good enough for you?"

"Yeah." She nodded not looking at him as she continued to pick at her nails.

Damon placed a hand over hers, stopping her. "You keep that up and you won't have any skin left on your finger."

"Sorry. Nervous habit." She said with a shrug as she let him take her hand, flip it over and thread his fingers through hers.

"Now where were we?" He asked with one thing on his mind as he wrapped his free arm around her waist and laid her back, pinning the hand he healed down next to her head. Her free hand rested on his back and when he started kissing her neck she sighed and dug her finger tips into the black leather of the jacket he was wearing.

He started teasing his teeth over the sensitive skin of her neck as she pushed his jacket down his arms. "Don't bite my neck unless you plan on giving me some of your blood." She told him breathlessly. "I hate scarves."

"Then where do you suggest?" He asked between kissing and nibbling at her neck, driving her crazy.

"Wrist, side, hip, anywhere that can be covered by a bracelet or-" She said as he kissed his way up her pail jaw line then cut her off by kissing her.

He kissed her for a minute then pulled back and sat up. She watched as he finished taking off his jacket then grabbed the back of his black t-shirt at the neckline and pulled it over his head. Katie found herself staring while resisting the urge to kiss every inch of his body that she could. "Too scary?" He asked remembering that too much muscle scared her.

"No." She laughed quietly. "Not at all." She sat up and pulled her shirt off then pressed her lips back to his as she draped her arms over his shoulders. His hands gripped her waist and picked her up, setting her on his lap straddling him, then slid up her back to band of her bra. Feeling that he was about to undo the hooks she started kissing his neck. "Sorry, Charley, the bra stays on."

"Aww, come on, pleeease." He begged knowing she probably wouldn't give in.

"You're a bad influence you know that?" She asked before she bit his neck harder than she intended.

"Mmhmm" He hummed as he grabbed her face between his hands and pulled her away from his neck. "And you're a tease." He said looking into her eyes and he slid his thumb over her lips.

"Sorry." She frowned and looked down at her fingers splayed out on his chest, hating that she couldn't just make herself turn off her conscience and have sex with a guy like other girls could.

"I didn't say I didn't like it." He said and she looked back up at him. He gave her a small smile that showed off one side of his smile lines.

She smiled and slid her hands up his chest to the back of his neck where one stayed as the other slid up into his hair. He sighed and started kissing her as he laid her back down then started kissing down her jaw line, neck, chest then over her breasts, sliding his hands down her sides as he did. When he got to the bottom of the band of her bra he asked, "You ready?" She nodded and he could tell she was nervous. So he grabbed one of her hands and kissed the back of it then placed it on his head and made her grab his hair. "You don't like it or you want me to stop, pull."

She swallowed hard, placed her other hand on his head, embedding her fingers in his soft hair, and nodded, "I'm ready."

She shook as he kissed her right side just below her breast and grazed his teeth over her skin. She watched the veins pop up under his eyes as the whites turned red then he closed his eyes and sank his teeth into to her. She hissed in a sharp breath, closed her eyes, but quickly relaxed as he grabbed one of her hands and gave it an encouraging squeeze. After a minute he pulled away and kissed her stomach. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She answered as she opened her eyes. "I'm fine. You can keep going if you want." She told him as she brushed his hair back. He smiled at her then kissed his way back to the bleeding bite. After another minute she started feeling sleepy. "Damon." She gave his hair a tug and he stopped. "I'm getting light headed."

He kissed his way up her body to her lips. She was slightly disturbed at herself for liking the taste of her blood on his tongue. Eventually, he slid to the side to lie beside her. "I didn't mean to take so much." He told her genuinely sorry as he brushed an auburn wave out of her face. "How do you feel?" He noticed her eye lids looked heavy.

"Dizzy...sleepy, kind of weak." she answered quietly.

"I'll be right back." He kissed her on her temple then went down stairs to the kitchen. "Okay, if I were a snack cake where would I be?" He asked himself as he looked around the kitchen. He checked the Pillsbury dough boy cookie jar, but only found crumbs. After looking in the pantry and the cupboards he finally found a chocolate bar in the freezer then grabbed a bottle of water out of the icebox. His next stop was the bathroom where he grabbed some gauze pads and medical tape.

When he walked back into the room she was sitting up attempting to put her shirt back on. "Will you help me?" She asked pathetically letting the shirt and her arms fall to her lap.

"In a minute." He tore the wrapper off the cold chocolate and handed it to her. "Eat this, your blood sugars low."

She took it from him, snapped off a piece then popped it into her mouth. "I hate chocolate."

"It's all I could find." He placed a few pads over the bite then grabbed her hand and placed it over them. "Hold that." While she held the gauze he tore off four pieces of tape.

"We don't keep sweets in the house. Grandpa refuses to have a fat cow living under his roof." She said then bit off a piece of the chocolate.

"Your grandpa's a dick." He taped the gauze in place then grabbed the bottle of water from beside him and unscrewed the lid. "Drink."

She swallowed the chocolate then took the bottle from him. "Yep."

He grabbed her shirt and turned it right side out then put it over her head. "So," he drawled out the word then took the chocolate and water from her and set them on her night stand. She let him help her put her arms through the shirt sleeves. "Other than getting sick after, what did you think?"

She scooted back to lean on her headboard. "It was...scary." she answered then looked at him and his pretty blue eyes. "But fun. I liked it." She gave him a smile.

"Good." He told her with a smile as he leaned in and pecked her on the lips.

"Just...promise me you won't drink so much next time. I feel like shit." She pressed her hand to her head, massaging her temple.

"Sorry." He grabbed the chocolate and water and handed them back to her. She wrinkled her nose at the chocolate, but took it. "Just so you know, you taste _really_ good. Best I've had in a while."

Katie broke the chocolate bar up into pieces. "Wonder why?" She asked then tossed all of the chocolate into her mouth.

"A person's diet can affect it sometimes." He said with a shrug, "like not eating a lot of sugar."

Katie swallowed the chocolate as if she were eating something disgusting. After downing half the bottle of water she looked at the clock to see that it was after two in the morning. "Oh God," Katie groaned pressed her hand to her head. "It's late and I have a quiz first thing in the morning."

"Then I'll let you get some sleep." He got up and tucked her into bed then kissed her. "Good night Katie."

"Hey, Damon?" Katie asked, grabbing his hand as he started to grab his shirt and jacket.

"Hmm?" he hummed, turning back to her.

"Would you completely hate it if I asked you to stay?" she asked sleepily.

"No." he laughed the word quietly. "Move over." He said as he rubbed her shoulder and she scooted over as he slid under the black and white comforter. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into his side. By the time he had gotten comfortable she was sound asleep with her head on his chest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 4**

Bright sunlight beamed through the white curtains of Katie's window as soft snores came from both her and Damon. With a groan, Damon wiped his eyes and looked around seeing Katie's head still lying on his chest. With eyes still adjusting to the sunlight he reached over to the night stand and picked up Katie's phone. It was six thirty and school didn't start until eight so he turned off the alarm she had set for seven and pulled up her contacts list. He punched the button to add a new contact and typed, "The hotter Salvatore brother" into the contact name slot then added his cell number and hit save.

Bored, he started playing with her hair, waking her up. "Damon?" she asked groggily picking her head up to look at him with squinted eyes. "You stayed all night." She observed, scooting away from him to prop her head up with her hand and elbow.

"Surprised?" he asked with a sleepy half smile.

"I'm not gonna lie. I figured you would've stayed until I was asleep then bolted." She said while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "What time is it?"

"I'm gonna try not to get offended at that and it's around six thirty. I know your alarm was set for seven, but I turned it off when I woke up." He said as he started paying with her hair again.

"Why? I'm still tired." She asked letting her head fall, resting her forehead on his cool chest.

"Because I wanted morning pillow talk." He said as if it were the obvious answer.

"I didn't take you for the type." She said as she picked her head up and looked him in the eyes. "Unless that's code for wanting to bite me again."

"Any other morning I would say yes please, but I took too much from you last night. You need more that four hours to recover." He said.

Katie sat up leaned against the wall and moved her legs to rest over his. "Will you hand me my glasses please?"

He grabbed her glasses and handed them to her. "You ever think about getting contacts?" he asked as he watched her put them on.

"Yeah, the eye doctor gave me a free pair to try." She said with a shrug. "I hated them, plus I have to pay for everything that's mine myself so I opted to make a car payment instead of buying contacts." She said with a shrug.

"You know there's always lasik." He commented as he put his hand under the covers and started rubbing her leg.

"Yes, because if I can't afford contacts I could afford lasik." She popped off and in a flash he grabbed her sides and moved her so that she was pinned under him, her head now at the foot of the bed.

"I'll pay for it." he said with a shrug then kissed her.

"No." she told him when he pulled back. "I like my glasses, they give me character."

"If you say so." He shrugged then attacked her neck with kisses.

She laughed and pushed him back, but he didn't budge. "You keep doing that and I'm gonna miss school." She moved her hands into his hair and pulled.

He stopped and smiled down at her. "I only meant for you to do that when I'm biting you."

"Yeah, well, I need to shower and get some coffee in me since you woke me up early." She said looking into his eyes, wondering how she had the strength to say no to them.

"Would it really be so bad if you missed one day of school to stay in bed with me all day?" He practically begged. Not using compulsion was making him sound needy.

"If I were naturally smart like the rest of the students at the top of my class, no. But I have to study hard and actually _go_ to class." She sighed running her hands over his chest, noticing his skin was cooler to the touch than a normal person's. "So first, a shower." She pulled him down to her, catching his lips with hers.

He kissed his way to her ear. "Fine, but make it quick and I better get to see you in just a towel." He bit her earlobe then sat up letting her slide from the bed. "I'll go make coffee."

While he was in the fairly large kitchen putting on a pot of coffee Katie showered quickly then headed back to her room and started getting dressed. She had put on a pink and black matching underwear set and was pulling on a pair of Jean's when he walked in. "Damn, I missed you in a towel." He smirked from where he leaned against the door frame, still shirtless as he watched her jeans slide up over her butt. She turned to him as she buttoned and zipped them.

"You didn't miss much." She sighed and pulled a thin long sleeved maroon shirt over her head.

He whooshed over to her and kissed her nose. "I beg to differ."

Katie grabbed a black leather jacket off the floor and put it on. Only when she noticed how baggie it was on her did she realize she had grabbed Damon's jacket. "Oops." She shrugged it off handed it to him then his shirt. She grabbed her jacket then shoved her books and homework into her bag. "Now coffee." She sighed then walked past Damon who had just finished putting on his jacket.

While she fixed her coffee he held her hips from behind and kissed her neck. "Why don't you want anyone to know about us?" He asked then kept kissing her as she stirred in some creamer.

"I don't remember saying that I didn't want any one to know." She said looking confused even though he couldn't see her face.

"Pretty sure you did right before I called Caroline." he said between kisses then pulled back and turned her around to look into her bright green eyes. "You said no one needs to know about us."

"Right, I forgot about that." She sighed as she picked up her cup then took a sip. Damon gave her a look that told her to answer the question. "Several reasons." She said as he gave her a soft nudge to the side so that he could make himself a cup. "You just broke it off with my friend. I'm already breaking girl code by being with you right now." She set down at the small dining table. "On top of that, I don't even know what _us_ means and until we figure it out I don't want to put us out there to be judged. My main goal right now is to not hurt Caroline." She took a sip of coffee and swallowed. "I care too much about my friends to choose a guy over them, no offense."

He set down across from her. "You're a good friend you know that?"

"You say to the girl who made her best friends boyfriend break up with her?" She asked with a scoff. "I'm a terrible friend."

"Yeah, but you had a good reason." He countered.

"Still doesn't make it right." She sighed and looked down at her cup.

"Stop beating yourself up about it." He told her as he downed his cup. "You working at the bar tonight?" he changed the subject.

"No, it's Friday, football game." She answered then looked at her watch. "You gonna be there?"

"Stefan joined the team, and my secret girlfriend will be cheering so...probably." he answered pretending to think about it.

She tried not to think too much into the fact that he called her his girlfriend. "Good." She said as she finished off her coffee and went to the icebox. She pulled a frozen waffle out and popped it into the toaster. "So is Stefan feeding on Elena?" Katie asked curiously.

"No." Damon answered with a tight lipped shake of his head.

"How are you so sure?" She asked as she leaned against the counter.

"Because," he said as he stood up and walked over to her, placing his hands on her hips, "Stefan only drinks animal blood."

"If that's an option why don't you drink animal blood?" She asked as the waffle popped up.

"Because it's disgusting. It gets you by but it doesn't keep you strong." Katie just looked at him and took a bite of the waffle not caring that it was still a little cold. "Imagine only eating a hand full of chocolate pieces and a tiny cup of water every day." Katie wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, not fun."

"So why does Stefan do it?" She asked trying not to be judgmental.

"Because he has no self control when it comes to human blood." He answered pulling her hips into his.

"What does that mean?" She asked then took another bite.

"Let's just say that if it was Stefan in your room last night you would be in pieces right now." He said then leaned over and took a bite of her waffle.

"Damn." She said with wide eyes. "Are you sure I don't need to worry about Elena?" She asked.

"Positive." He answered then let go of her hips and turned around. "If you still insist on making it to school you should probably get going."

She looked up at the clock to see that it was a quarter till eight. "Shit." She hissed and stuck the rest of the waffle between her teeth and grabbed her bag and coat then rushed to the door.

"Hey, forgetting something?" he asked and she turned back to see him holding her keys and cell phone. So she walked over and made a grab for them but he pulled them up, holding them over her head. She smiled and glared up at him through his lashes. After a second she pressed her lips to his and kissed him, teasing him with her tongue as she slid her hand up his chest to grip his neck. As she predicted, he relaxed and lowered his hand to put it on her waist. As soon as he did she grabbed her things out of his hand, still kissing him.

He tried to get them back, but she managed to keep them out of reach until she backed away and eventually broke the kiss. "I win." She smiled up at him.

"You play dirty." He commented pouting again before he smiled a cheeky smile. "I like it." she just laughed and walked away with a smile on her face.

Since she got to school just in time to make it into the classroom right before the bell rang, she didn't get to see her friends or make sure Caroline was okay. After school Katie went home and put on her uniform, French braided her bangs back out of her face, and put on flattering brown shades of eye shadow, a light coating of mascara, and glittery pink lip gloss that Caroline forces her to wear on Friday nights then headed out for the game.

From the time Katie met up with the cheer squad, Caroline acted like nothing had ever happened with them and like she hadn't been dumped last night. "So I take it you and Caroline made up." Bonnie said as she walked up to where she stood with the other cheerleaders on the field who were setting up the sign for the football players to run though.

"No, I haven't spoken to her since our fight last night." Katie said with a shrug. She wasn't about to tell Bonnie that she knew for a fact that Damon dumped her last night. "So are you still obsessing over those numbers?" she changed the subject.

"Yeah, it's weird. I have no idea what they're supposed to mean." She said with a frown, clearly worried about it.

"You'll figure it out eventually." Katie said with a shoulder shrug as she spotted Elena headed their way over Bonnie's shoulder.

"You're weirdly okay with all of this." Bonnie told her with a suspicious look.

"What can I say, I'm good with weird." Katie said with a smile then turned it to Elena as she walked up to them

"Hey, can I ask you a question and you give me a serious, no-joke response?" Elena asked Bonnie, looking freaked.

"Of course. What is it?" Bonnie asked.

"The bad mojo. When you touched Stefan and you had that reaction." Elena started.

"You know what, forget I said that. Your little dinner party plot totally won me over." Bonnie interrupted.

"No, Bonnie, Seriously. What was it?" Elena asked still looking freaked out. "Did you see something, or…?"

Bonnie looked at Katie, clearly hesitant to answer. "We trust you, Bon." She encouraged her friend with a small smile and a nod.

"It wasn't clear like a picture. Like today, I keep seeing those same numbers I told you about, 8, 14, 22. When I touched Stefan, it was a feeling. And it vibrated through me and it was cold and it…"

"And what?" Elena asked eagerly.

"It was death. It's what I imagine death to be like." Bonnie answered.

Elena nodded looking disappointed. "Thanks. Have fun tonight." She said then turned and started walking away.

The cheerleaders were lined up on each side of the sign forming a runway for the football players to run through, but when the guys never showed up, people started getting worried. Eventually the announcer informed everyone that the game was being postponed because the Mystic Falls football coach had been attacked by an animal. Everyone was instructed to proceed to their cars with caution.

Katie and Bonnie stood outside the school as a medical team put the coach who was in a body bag on a stretcher and started wheeling him to the ambulance. After the ambulances doors shut Katie looked at Bonnie to see tears forming in her eyes and her hands started shaking. "Hey, are you okay?" Katie asked placing her hand on Bonnie's shoulder.

"8." Bonnie pointed at the building across from them, "14" she then pointed to a license plate then a number painted on the street, "22."

"Oh my God." Katie whispered realizing that Bonnie had been seeing her teacher's death. "Maybe it's just a coincidence." Katie said with a shrug trying to make her friend feel better.

"Katie, I'm scared." Bonnie started crying and Katie pulled her friend into a hug.

"It'll be fine, I promise." Katie rubbed her back. "We'll figure this out, okay?"

"I need to get home." Bonnie pulled back and wiped her tears.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Katie asked letting go of her friend.

"Yeah, I'll be fine." Bonnie answered putting on a strong face that Katie didn't buy. "I'll see you later, okay?" Katie nodded then they went their separate ways.

As soon as Katie walked through her front door her grandpa practically pounced on her, pinning her against the door with his forearm on her neck. "What did I do now?" Katie grunted, grabbing his arm and attempting to pull it off of her.

"Oh, _you_ didn't do anything." He sneered at her as she struggled to get out of his hold. "But one of my best friends died tonight and I feel like hitting something."

"Then buy a punching bag." she grunted, feeling her face turn red from the lack of oxygen.

"Why would I do that? I have you." he growled and took his arm off of her neck just to punch her in the side three times. She doubled over in pain as he grabbed her by her hair and slung her around like a rag doll before tossing her to the floor. She was defenseless as he grabbed her cheer top and pulled her to sit up then punched her in the face. She cried out and tried to drag herself backwards.

Damon, leaving Elena's house, heard Katie's scream and whooshed over to her house. He let himself in and found her grandpa towering over Katie where she still half sat half laid on the floor. In a flash Damon grabbed Grandpa by the back of his shirt and flung him across the living room. "Damon?" Katie asked in confusion as he walked over and helped her up. "What are you doing here?" she asked clutching her stomach.

"Saving you." he popped off with a smirk then turned to Grandpa who was pulling himself up off the floor. "Now what should I do about you?" he asked as he sauntered over to the man and grabbed him by the neck of his shirt. He pulled him up from the ground and pinned him against the wall with his hand on his throat. "Should I...compel you?" He asked as Katie walked cautiously over to stand next to Damon. Grandpa gave her a pleading look. "Don't look at her, look at me." Grandpa moved his scared eyes back to Damon. "Maybe I should drain all the blood from your body then feed you to the wolves." He offered and Grandpa started crying. "Are you seriously crying?" Damon asked then looked at Katie to see her staring at him with worried eyes. "I got it," he looked back at Grandpa, "I'll snap your neck and throw you off the falls where no one will ever find your body." Damon smiled.

"Please..." Grandpa sobbed. "Please don't kill me."

"Oh, I see. So you can dish it out…but you can't take it?" Damon asked.

Katie, having seen enough, decided to put a stop to it and placed her hand on Damon's arm. Damon looked down at her hand on him and smiled. "As much as I would love to see you break his neck, I'm gonna opt for compulsion." Damon looked her in the eyes, finally seeing how scared she really was. "Please?" Damon seemed to be considering it. "If he dies I go into foster care until I'm eighteen, I don't want that. So please, just...don't kill him."

Damon frowned and wrinkled his nose. "Fine." He then looked at Grandpa and stared into his eyes. "You will _never_ lay a hand on Katie again. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you." Grandpa answered flatly.

"You're also going to forget everything that happened here tonight." He added

"I will forget."

"Good." Damon set him down with a smile and patted him on the shoulders.

Katie sighed in relief and Damon walked over and motioned for her to go up the stairs. So she walked up and Damon followed her to her room, shutting the door behind him. "Thank you for that." Katie said with a grunt as she sat down on the bed and started taking the braids out of her hair.

"You're welcome." Damon sat down beside her and cupped her cheek in one hand as he pressed on her eye socket with the other making her wince. "It's not broken. What about your side?"

"It's fine." She pulled her hand away from her side and tried to sit up straight, but she hissed in pain.

"Liar." Damon told her with a tight lipped smile and a squint of an eye. "Lie down and let me take a look." He reached for the hem of her cheer top.

"I said I'm fine." She pulled away clearly uncomfortable with the idea of him seeing her stomach right now.

"Come on Katie at, let me take a look." He tried using the pet name he knew she didn't like.

"Fine." She pulled her top off revealing the large spot on her right side that was already starting to turn purple and laid back on the twin sized bed with her head near the wall and her feet dangling off the side. "And don't call me that."

"That looks like it hurts." He commented as he turned toward her then started pressing around on her side. "So far it doesn't feel like you have any broken ribs."

"How can you tell?" She asked as watching him prod his slender fingers along each if her ribs.

"When you've been around as long as I have you pick up a few things along the way." He said still going over her ribs.

"How long have you… been around?" Katie asked cautiously.

"Sense June 18th 1839." He answered with a small smile.

"Wow, you are way too old for me." She joked with a smile. As he kept gently pressing along her ribs she got lost in thought. Without thinking of the possible consequences she asked. "Did you kill coach Tannor?"

"Mmhmm" he hummed as he finished up checking her ribs.

"Why?" she asked as she sat up and stood from the bed with a quiet grunt in pain.

"To prove a point." He answered as she walked over to her closet and pulled a black tank top off of a hanger.

"Yeah, and what point is that? That you're a murderous maniac with a soft spot for poor, abused teenaged girls?" she asked as she pulled the tank top over her head.

"You think I have a soft spot for you?" he asked challengingly, watching her take off her skirt, revealing really short, shiny black spanks.

"You traded sure thing sex with Caroline for virginal me." she said as she tossed the skirt into the dirty close hamper next to her full length mirror. "And you haven't compelled me that I now of. So what else could it be if not a soft spot?"

Damon just frowned and scratched the back of his head as she turned from him and grabbed a pair of athletic shorts out of her dresser. He didn't know what to say. Maybe he did have a soft spot for her.

"I knew what you were when I made this deal, but if I ask you to stop killing people…will you?" she asked as she turned to him and took her bloomers off.

"Oh jeeze…" he sighed as he laid back on her bed, tucking his hand under her pillow. "You're not gonna try to change me are you?"

"Just answer the question." She sighed as she pulled on the shorts.

"Probably not, no." he answered and she felt her nostrils flair. "Katie…" he drawled out her name. "Like you said, you knew what I am."

"I know, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or condone it." she grumbled as she walked over and straddled his stomach then fell to lay between him and the wall. Needing a change of subject she asked, "So are you going to the founder's party tomorrow?" she ran her hand up his chest and started unbuttoning his black shirt.

"Yep." He answered. "If I can find a new date. I was going to go with Caroline, but..." he finished with a closed lipped smile.

"Speaking of Caroline..." Katie reached over Damon and grabbed her phone off the night stand. "I need to talk to her."

"Why?" He asked watching her move around to lean against the wall and drape her toned legs over his still half dressed stomach.

"Because, she acted weird at the football game. She wasn't mad at me about the fight and she never mentioned you once. Normally she would've made snide comments and been whiny about getting dumped." Before she pressed call Damon took the phone from her. She looked at him, confused before she realized he looked guilty. "What did you do?"

"I may have compelled her to not be mad at you about the fight and to believe that me and her breaking up was a mutual decision." He said looking like he knew he was about to get hit then closed his eyes waiting for the blow to come. When he didn't get hit he cracked an eye open to see her glaring at him.

"Stop compelling Caroline." She practically growled as she sat up and threw a leg over him. She straddled him and leaned down bracing herself on her hands. "I know you did it for me and on one level I appreciate it, but I needed to apologize to her for my own benefit. I needed to talk things out with her…get back in a good place and now I can't because you brainwashed her." She said as she sat up and started unbuttoning the rest of the buttons on his shirt. "You need to let me handle my business my way."

"I'm sorry." He sighed.

"Are you really though?" She asked, running her hands up his chest, pushing his shirt out of the way.

"A little bit." He answered, surprising her. "I only did it because I really want you to be my date for the founder's party. And I knew after our conversation this morning that it wouldn't happen if Caroline was still pining after me." He watched Katie's hands slide back down his stomach and he sighed, liking her relaxing touch. "I did it for us." He placed his hands on her hips.

Katie grabbed the fabric of his shirt and jacket and pulled. He set up and started kissing her as she pushed the clothing off of him. He tossed it to the floor then grabbed her wrists, moved her arms up, pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it onto the pile. "Do me a favor and remember that just because you _can_ compel someone," Damon pecked her on the lips, shutting her up for a second, "doesn't mean you should."

He kissed her then moved her around to lay on her back then started kissing her, but eventually Damon pulled away from her neck and asked, "Why haven't you ratted out Stefan and me?"

"Well, first of all you made me promise not to and I don't break promises and second if I ran shouting vampire through the streets people would think I've been smoking whatever Vicki's been smoking." She said with a small smile before she moved her eyes to watch her hands slide over the smooth skin of his shoulders and arms. "And maybe because as horrible of a decision it is for me to make because you have openly admitted to killing people, I like spending time with you." she said with a shrug of her shoulders. "And Stefan makes Elena happy." She didn't miss the way his face fell, just a bit at the mention of his brother and Elena. "But can I ask you something?" she asked and Damon gave her a nod. She was going to ask about why he didn't like his brother and Elena together but she changed her mind at the last second and instead asked, "Why do you even need a date to the founder's party? Is it really so bad if you go by yourself?"

"I haven't been in town long enough for that. I need to show up with someone the mayor knows lives here." He explained then noticed her indifferent look. "You don't want to go do you?"

"I do now." She said with a smile that said the direct opposite. "I hate parties. I don't even own a dress."

"Then we'll go in the morning and buy you a dress." He said as he slid his hands over the bare skin of her arms.

"We?" She asked with a laugh. "No. I can pick out my own dress."

"Come on, I'm good at picking out dresses." He complained. "Blue will look good on you."

"Then I will think about getting a blue one." She smiled then leaned in and pecked him on the lips. "I'll meet you at the party."

"Nope, I was raised better than that." He told her then started peppering her face and neck with kisses. "I'll meet you at your door and walk you to my car like a gentleman."

"The girls are meeting at Elena's to get ready. Pick me up there." She told him and when he opened his mouth to say something she kissed him. He laughed into the kiss as he kissed her back, sliding his hand down her side to her thigh where he grabbed it and pulled it up and around him, digging his fingers into her outer thigh. "Damon." She sighed at the sensation he was sending through her body with his every touch.

He kissed his way up and down her body then sat up bringing her with him so that she was sitting in his lap with her legs wrapped around him. "I don't usually like to do this, but," he bit his wrist and put it in front of her face, "drink."

"Why?" she asked skeptically looking down at the red teeth marks on the under side of his wrist.

"Because I like you and you need it." he answered as he swept her hair to the side exposing her neck. "and I've been thinking about your neck all day." He admitted looking at the veins in her neck before he looked at her eyes to see a hint of fear in them. He brushed his fingers along her hairline then cupped her cheek in his hand. "If you drink my blood, your bruised ribs and face will heal, so will your neck." he brushed his hand down her face and over her neck as he pressed his lips to hers. She instantly relaxed into him as he kissed his way to her neck then up to her ear, "No one will know."

"Okay." She sighed as she held onto his shoulders.

"You sure?" he asked pulling back and moving his hand back to cup her cheek in his hand. As he looked into her eyes, making double sure she was fine with him biting her neck, he ran his thumb over her cheekbone.

"Yeah." She smiled and nodded. "I'm sure."

He looked at his wrist to see that the bite he had made before had already healed. "Take more than you did last time. As sexy as it was… just licking it won't be enough." He bit his wrist and held it up to her lips. She smiled at him and licked it before she closed her lips over the bite and sucked. He placed his hand on her neck and slid it down over her shoulder, then down her arm. A sigh left her lips as he started kissing her neck, nibbling and sucking as he slid his hand into hers, threading their fingers together. She took her lips from his wrist. "Nu uh, more." He put his wrist back up to her lips.

When she started sucking on his wrist again, he sank his teeth into her neck. A small whimper vibrated his wrist and she squeezed his hand. After a few seconds he pulled his wrist away from her and laid her back, keeping one of her legs wrapped around him as he did. "God, Damon." Hearing her moan his name like that really got him wound up and he grinded his hips into her to show her exactly how she was affecting him. She moaned and slid her hand that had been gripping his back slid up and grabbed his hair, giving it a soft tug.

He realized how long he had actually been drinking from her then and when he stopped she sighed and the bite disappeared. "Do you know how crazy you make me?" he asked, grinding his hips into her as he kissed up her jaw line then rested his forehead on hers and looked into her eyes.

"Pretty sure the feelings mutual." She smiled then pecked him on the lips as he smiled at her.

"How do you feel?" he asked looking at her neck where the bite mark would've been.

"Good." She looked down to see that her side was healed and when he ran his hand over her ribs, knowing what she was looking at, there was no pain. "Really good, actually." She said with a smile. "And happy." She added as he moved off of her, falling to lay between her and the wall.

"That's my blood." He told her sliding his hand over her body, absentmindedly. "It get's you really happy and healthy, but…"

"You crash after it makes it's way out of your system." She finished and he nodded, thinking about something, Katie grabbed her phone off of the nightstand. She intended on calling Elena and letting her know she had decided to go to the party, but it was too late to call. She was looking for Elena's number and had scrolled too far when she saw that Damon had added his number to her phone and she started laughing. "The Hotter Salvatore Brother?" Damon smiled his cocky smile. "Yeah, I'm changing that."

"Nope." Damon took the phone from her hand and hid it behind his back. "The name stays." She laughed and tried to grab the phone but he moved it out of reach. So she pressed her lips to his, trying to replicate her strategy from this morning, running her hands down his chest to grip his hip as she rolled onto her side and pulled him into her. "That's not gonna work you know." He said when she started kissing his neck, pulling a sigh from him, "but don't let me stop you from trying."

She sighed and pulled away from him. "Fine." She settled for lying on her side with her head resting on his arm. "I need to know what to tell my friends tomorrow when they find out you're my date." She said as she rolled over and stared at the ceiling, hoping that Caroline would be okay with it.

"Well, I'm your date so I'd say we're dating." He answered placing his finger on her chin to turn her face to him.

"Okay." She sighed accepting it for now. "Can I have my cell phone back now?"

He reached behind him and picked up the cell phone and handed it to her, but when she tried to take it he pulled it back. "Leave the name." he told her making her smile.

"Okay." She sighed. "The name stays."

He gave her back her phone and she set an alarm to wake herself up in the morning then turned back to Damon. They spent the rest of the night making out and having fun until they fell asleep tangled in each others arms.


	5. Chapter 5

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 5**

Like the morning before, Damon woke up first, but this morning felt different. It took him a minute to realize that for the first time in a fairly long time, he woke up happy. The revelation threw him for a loop. He had a simple plan when he came to Mystic Falls. Three easy steps: wait for the comet to pass, get the crystal, open the tomb under the church and get Katharine back. A weird teenage girl who was equal parts accepting, cautious and teasingly sexy, did not fit into that equation. She was innocent and innocent girls were never his thing. They were too…complicated and clingy, but Katie was somehow different. He also hadn't expected to find Katharine's look alike when he came to town. He wanted Elena and hated that his brother had gotten her first. He knew why he wanted Elena, she looked like Katherine. But Katie was a puzzle he didn't know if he could solve.

As he contemplated he watched Katie sleeping. If he wanted to, with a simple snap of her neck, he could turn her and make her his forever. He was seriously thinking about it, but his eyes landed the open text book on her desk and he changed his mind. She had a bright, well deserved future ahead of her and if he turned her...her whole life would change. He couldn't do that to her.

He was zoned out, staring at the text book, when Katie's eyes fluttered open and landed on him. His eyes were so still, he wasn't even blinking. "What are you thinking about?" She asked and he jumped. She laughed.

"I was thinking about why I came back to Mystic Falls." He answered resting his hand on her bare side.

"Came back?" She asked placing her hand on his chest just to feel the hard muscles beneath his soft skin.

"I was born here." He answered. "I lived here until I was 24." He slid his hand up her warm side. "Every once in a while I come home to check up on things."

"Is that how old you are physically?" She asked and he nodded as his hand slid over her chest to cup the side of her neck. "So why did you come back if not to check up on things?"

"To rescue the love of my life." He told her without cracking a smile.

"Who are you talking about?" She asked giving him a playful glare. "Because I know it's not me."

"I could be talking about you." He said with a teasing smile as he slid his index finger over her slightly chapped bottom lip.

She made a buzzer sound, "Wrong answer. Try again."

"Her name's Katherine." He told her as he slid his finger down her small, nearly perfect, freckled nose making her smile.

"Stefan's ex girlfriend, Katherine?" She asked and he rolled his eyes.

"She...dated both of us." He said reluctantly. "At the same time."

"I'm trying really hard not to judge this chick, so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut until you tell me more about her." she said as she wrinkled her nose at the thought of being with two brothers like that.

"No, judge away, she's a manipulative bitch." He said as he ran his fingers through her hair, pushing it out of his face.

"But you love her?" she asked with a frown. He nodded and hummed a positive answer. "Why, if she's such a bad person?"

"She was…beautiful, adventurous, and fun." He said letting a small smile slip while talking about her. "And her laugh was just…crazy." His smile grew bigger.

"I heard she died in a fire?" she asked a little confused since he had used both "is" and "was" while talking about Katherine.

"That's what Stefan thinks." He said as he slid his hand down her chest between her breasts. He could feel her heart start racing. "I know the truth."

She grabbed his hand, took it off of her chest and set it on her hip. "Which is?" she asked now that she could concentrate.

"She's still alive, but barely." He said making Katie even more confused. "There's a council of people in this town, or at least there was in the 1830's, that knew about vampires. They rounded them up and put them in the church to be burned. But Katherine had a witch to save her. They locked her in a tomb under the church. She's still there."

"So why haven't you gotten her out sooner than this?" Katie asked. Damon brushed his thumb back and forth over her smooth skin, wondering if he was telling her too much.

"The witch used a magic crystal and the power of a comet to seal her in. I had to wait for the comet to pass over again before the crystal would work to break the seal." He explained, looking her up and down. "The crystal is at the Lockwood's, hidden in one of the boxes that's part of the heritage display. That's why I need to go tonight, to get it back."

Remembering that she still needed to go by a dress she picked up her cell phone and checked the time. It was seven, stores didn't open until eight. "So you need me to help you get the crystal so you can get your half dead vampire girlfriend out of tomb?" she asked just trying to get the story straight.

"And I need you to keep everything I just told you to yourself. No one else knows she's down there and I need it to stay that way." He told her then grabbed both sides of her waist and rolled onto his back. She smiled and moved her legs so that she was straddling him.

"Okay. I'll put it in the vault, lock it away with the fact that you and Stefan are vampires." She sighed the words as she watched him grab her hands then give them a jerk pulling her down so that her face was just inches away from his.

"You…are…amazing, you know that?" he asked then pressed his lips to hers. He had been expecting some kind of rejection or protests or complaints from her when he straight up told her he was in love with a half dead vampire. But she took it all in stride like she did everything else.

After making out for a few seconds she pulled away and sat up. "So this has an expiration date." Or he _thought_ she took it in stride. He tried to look her in the eyes, but she wasn't looking at his face. Instead she watched her fingertips that drew random shapes over his stomach.

"Katie…" he sighed, practically begging her not to go there.

"It's fine." She snapped blinking rapidly as she looked up and gave him a small smile. She wanted to cry, he could tell, but she was doing a good job of covering it up. He frowned and cupped her face in his hand, wiping away an invisible tear with his thumb. "Really. I promise. I'll be fine." Not knowing what else to do he slid his hand around to the back of her neck and pulled her down for a kiss.

He rolled them over and had started kissing her neck when she reached over and picked up her phone, checking the time. "You're looking for an excuse to get away from me now aren't you?" he asked then started kissing her earlobe.

"Am I that transparent?" she asked and he pulled back and looked into her eyes, seeing the pain she was trying so hard to hide.

"A little, but I understand why you want to." He answered as he put a foot on the floor and stood up. He picked up his shirt and jacket and watched her grab a set of clean underwear out of her dresser and grab her towel that hung on the back of her door as he buttoned up his shirt. "Do you want me gone by the time you're done?" he asked and Katie thought about it before she nodded. "But I'll still see you tonight, right?"

She walked over to him and grabbed his neck as she stood on her tip toes and kissed him with as much passion as she could muster in the moment. "Yes." She answered as she dropped back down to stand flat footed, turned around and walked away without looking him in the eyes.

As he put on a pot of coffee, assuming she'd want some before she went shopping, he tuned his ears into where he knew she was upstairs. He was surprised to not hear her crying, but then again it was hard to hear over the sound of running water. When the coffee started dripping, he left.

As Katie showered, she didn't cry. She kept telling herself that she was stronger than that and that she knew they weren't an item or anything. It was just fun, plain and simple. So she sucked it up, showered, dried off and dressed. She was brushing her hair when she spotted her journal sticking out from under a few text books. The textbooks got pushed aside as she sat down and opened the journal to a fresh page. "Hey, journal. It's been a hot minute, I know, but I've been busy. As crazy as it sounds, I made a deal with a vampire. Damon and Stefan _really are_ vampires. Damon was preying on Caroline so I stupidly offered to take her place. I know that sounds weird, but he was messing with her head, turning her into a worse version of herself and I couldn't let him do that. I don't know why, but he doesn't mess with my head the way he does other people. I know that doesn't make me special or anything, but it has to mean something, right?" she stopped and scratched at her head with a creased brow.

"I realized this morning that I stupidly let myself have feelings for him. I didn't intend on it and it happened fast. I knew this was probably a temporary thing considering how we ended up together in the first place. It's not like we met at the bar and sparks flew or anything but he's just so damn sweet and loving and fun. How was I supposed to resist?" A tear slipped down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away with the back of her finger. "So when he tells me he's in love with Katherine how am I supposed to feel?" She stopped and looked around her room as sadness turned to something else. "You know what? No. I'm not that girl. I'm not the kind to act like a kicked puppy over a guy. So you know what? I'm going to make things simple and make the best out of this situation. I'll enjoy him, how happy he makes me and the things he makes me feel right now. However when it ends, and I know it will, I'm not going to cry. I refuse to be the girl whose life ends because a man left her. So… I have a dress to buy and a man to impress just for the hell of it."

* * *

She drove to the local boutique to find a suitable dress. After looking through several racks of just okay dresses she found a dress that she loved. A white fifty's style dress with a blue floral print, a thick black waist band, black halter straps, black trim that looked similar to a folded down collar and three black buttons down the bust. It was a bit over the top and out of style, but she didn't care. So she bought it and some black heels then headed to Elena's where she met up with her and Bonnie. "Hey!" Katie called as she walked into the Gilbert house.

"In here!" Bonnie called and Katie followed her voice to the kitchen. "We thought you weren't coming. If I recall you said something about not wanting to go to some stuffy party." Bonnie said as Katie walked into the room with a dress and a makeup bag in her hands.

"That was before I had a date." She said as she as she held up the dress, covered in the clear plastic that the boutique had put over it.

"Ooh, pretty." Elena remarked as Katie placed it over the back of one of the dining chairs and sat down. "And very you."

"Wait, did you just say you have a date?" Bonnie asked as she pulled several bottles of nail polish out of her gold makeup bag.

Katie hummed a positive answer then sat down at the table and started taking her own nail polish out of her black and white makeup bag.

"Who?" Elena and Bonnie asked at the same time.

"Um, Damon Salvatore." Her answered sounded more like a question and she didn't look at them but at the nail polish on the table.

"What?" Both of the girls asked at the same time again.

Katie looked up at them, "You two have got to stop doing that." She motioned between them with a nail file in her hand.

"I thought he was dating Caroline." Bonnie said looking at Katie with wide eyes.

"Did I hear my name?" Caroline asked as she walked into the room with a yellow dress in her hands and two bags of beauty supplies.

"Yeah, did you and Damon break up?" Elena asked as Caroline sat down at the table.

"Oh, yeah, a couple of days ago." She answered without looking at them.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Bonnie asked.

Caroline shrugged. "It wasn't that big a deal. We simply decided that we weren't right for each other and broke it off. I'm completely over him."

"So you don't care if Katie goes to the party with him tonight?" Elena asked with a look between Caroline and Katie.

"No. Not at all." She told Elena with a smile then turned her smile on Katie. "Have fun."

"See, she's over him." Katie said with a smile as she picked out two bottles of nail polish. "And I want to get under him."

"Katie!" Elena laughed at her friend not believing that she had said it.

"You should, he's fun." Caroline said with a knowing smile and a wiggle of her brows.

Katie laughed making Bonnie look at her. "What happened to saving it for _the one_?" Bonne asked worried about her friend's behavior.

"I decided that you only live once. What if I die in some freak construction accident tomorrow or find out I have cancer or something and die a virgin?" she said with a shrug then held up two bottles of nail polish, "Blue, black or both?"

"Blue." All three girls answered so Katie tossed the black polish into her bag and started filing her relatively short nail tips into uniform ovals.

"Katie there's something you should know about Damon." Elena said as she walked over to the table and sat down across from her.

"What's that?" Katie asked as she started putting a base coat on her nails.

"He tried to kiss me after the football game." She told her getting the attention of all of her friends.

"What?" Katie asked, putting the brush back into the bottle and pushing it to the side.

"Yeah he was being all cocky talking about how he knows I want him and how he knew I wanted to kiss him. He tried to kiss me and I slapped him." He explained looking at Katie who frowned down at the bottles of nail polish on the table. "Katie he's bad news."

Katie blinked and looked across the table at Elena. "Okay, so I'll go to this thing with him tonight and then break it off with him tomorrow." Katie told Elena who was frowning at her. "I promise I'll be careful."

"Okay, if you say so." Elena said finally letting it go.

After that they all got back to listening to music, painting their nails and talking about the latest fashion trends. When they were done with that they migrated upstairs and started on their hair and makeup.

Katie and Bonnie were in the bathroom, Katie putting on makeup while Bonnie curled her hair. "Someone's getting all gussied up." Bonnie commented watching Katie put on smoky brown eye shadow that she only wore to football games. "You're pulling out all the stops for him tonight, huh?"

"Well, I don't really have the opportunity to get all gussied up for a guy very often. So I figured why not do my best to make his heart stop for a second when he sees me. Is that stupid?" she asked but Bonnie didn't get the chance to respond because Elena came into the room in a huff. "What's up?" Katie asked at her friend's distress.

"Jeremy took the pocket watch out of the collection that I'm loaning to the Lockwood's." She sighed then started fixing her hair. "He's such a punk sometimes."

"Man I'm lucky I don't have any siblings." Katie said with a smile that made Elena shake her head at her.

Caroline had just finished zipping up Katie's dress for her when they heard the doorbell ring. "I got it!" Elena called from down stairs and they heard the door open.

"Elena." Damon's voice floated up to them since the bathroom door was open. "You look beautiful this evening." He told her and Katie got jealous for a second as she put on her bracelet and dangly earrings.

"Save the compliments for your own date." Elena replied coldly.

Katie placed the lip gloss she was wearing into her black satin clutch, snapped it shut then took one look at herself in the mirror. Seeing that she looked about as good as she was going to get, frowning at her glasses as she pushed them up her nose, she headed down stairs. She had to remind herself to walk slowly down the stairs or else she would fall flat on her face because she wasn't used to wearing heels. When Damon came into sight, waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes found her and his jaw went slack. "Whoa."

Katie smiled as she carefully walked to the bottom of the stairs and looped her arm through his when he offered it. "You don't look so bad yourself." She said as she looked him up and down. He jerked his head to the door with a smile on his face and she walked with him to his Camaro. He opened her door for her and she slid inside then let him shut it. After he got in and started the car she finally asked, "Are you still alive over there?" she then thought about what she had asked, "Er…well, you know what I mean." She corrected nervously and Damon laughed softly.

"Yeah, I knew what you meant." He put the car into gear and started driving. "It's just…I didn't expect..."

His lack of words caused the confidence she had built up while getting ready to drop to the pit of her stomach. "Did I over do it? I know the dress is a little much, but-"

"No, you're…" he cut her off and smiled a bright smile at her across his shoulder. "You're stunning." He turned his eyes back to the road. "I just meant that I knew that you didn't want to come tonight and that I was dragging you here. Most the time when people get dragged somewhere they don't really try to look good for it." he said glancing over to see her staring down at her hands trying not to pick at her cuticles and mess up her nails. He reached over and grabbed one of her hands. "And after this morning…" A pang of sadness shot through her chest and she took in a shaky breath. She knew what she said in her journal, but it didn't mean it was going to be easy. "I didn't know if-"

"Damon?" she cut him off and he hummed, letting her know she had his attention since she wasn't looking at him. "I told you this morning that I'd be fine." She gave his hand a squeeze and slid her other hand over his. "I took time, I processed. I understand that you're only with me until you save her, I'm okay with it. And if it's okay with you, my plan is to enjoy every minute that you're mine and when the time comes, I'll say goodbye and move on." She said then finally looked over at him.

"I'm more than okay with that." He let go of her hand to place his on the back of her neck under her wavy, dark copper hair, rubbing his thumb across the sensitive skin just below her ear.

The more she thought about what Elena had told her the more it started to really bother her so finally she asked. "Did you try to kiss Elena after the football game?"

"She told you about that huh?" he asked taking his hand off the back of her neck to scratch his.

"Yeah, she told me. Care to explain why so I can stop drawing my own conclusions?" she asked.

Damon sighed and adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. "Right after my brother and I turned I promised I would use my eternity to make his a living hell. I knew if he found out that Elena kissed me that it would hurt him."

"So you did it to hurt Stefan, not because you want Elena?" she asked.

Damon hummed a positive answer. "Are you mad?"

"You tried to kiss my best friend. What do you think?" she asked with a glare over at him.

"I think I didn't realize that it would hurt you too and I'm sorry." He said with a look across his shoulder at her.

She sighed leaned forward to press her forehead into the dash. After a few minutes she sat up and glared at him. "Here's what's gonna happen." She started as she turned in her seat to face him. "You and I are going to act like this conversation didn't happen and enjoy the night. Then tomorrow I'm going to yell and cuss at you like I want to right now. Deal?"

"Deal." He told her as he looked back at the road.

She got quiet as she looked around the old car interior that was in perfect condition. As she looked at the steering wheel she noticed that he was wearing the ring that he never seemed to take off. "Can I ask what's up with the rings? I noticed the other day that Stefan wears one too."

"I was wondering when you were going to ask about that." He said with a smile. "You said the other day that the vampires in the house of night books can walk around in the sunlight no problem?" he asked and she hummed. "Well, we can't, not without our rings."

"So do most vampires have rings that let them walk in the daylight or just you two?" she asked curiously.

"No, you have to know a witch to get one and most witches try to stay away from vampires, they kind of hate us." He said with a smirk over at her. "Can't really blame them if I'm being honest."

Katie smiled a little. "So how did you and Stefan get yours?" she asked and he started laughing. "What?" she asked with a smile.

"You're just full of questions tonight is all." He said with a smile then looked back at the road. "Katherine's handmaiden was a witch, she had her make us the rings."

"So what happens if you go in the sunlight without your rings? Please tell me you don't sparkle that crap almost ruined the Twilight books for me."

"We burn." He answered simply.

"Am I asking too many questions?" she asked sheepishly as she scratched the back of her neck.

"No, ask whatever you want and I'll answer truthfully as long as you keep it to yourself." He said with a small smile over at her as they pulled up to the Lockwood's. "I need you to do me a favor tonight."

"I know. I need to help you find the crystal." She said as he parked and cut off the car.

"Not that," he said as he reached over and brushed the backs of his fingers over her soft cheek, "I need you to get Stefan to dance with you, get him away from Elena for a little while." he said, looking into her eyes that turned suspicious.

"Why?" she drawled out the question.

"I need to talk to her, apologize." he said and she still glared at him.

"Okay. I'll get him to dance with me even though it will be really awkward since I can't dance." She said with a shrug then reached for the door handle.

"Nu uh uh." He said as he grabbed her hand stopping her. "We're early." He let go of her hand and placed his on her neck as he leaned into her. "And when you do get out of this car I'm opening the door for you." He caught her lips with his, not caring that he was smearing her lip gloss. "Have I thanked you for wearing blue?" He asked as he started kissing down her neck.

"No, but you're welcome." She smiled not caring that he was leaving a trail of lip gloss along her neck to her shoulder. When he leaned back she saw veins under his eyes and his fangs were on display. She cupped his face in her hands and soothed her thumbs over the veins. "Does that hurt?" He smiled a little and shook his head no. "Can you wait until after the party? This dress is a pain in the ass to get off and I-"

He placed his finger over her lips, "That doesn't just happen when I'm thirsty." He said and she blushed. "You're _killing_ me in that dress." Katie laughed and Damon looked around seeing that a line of people had formed at the front doors of the house. "Ready to go?"

"Give me a second." She said as she popped open her black clutch and took out a small pack of makeup wipes. "You got lip gloss all over me." She wiped the sticky from her neck and shoulder then handed him the wipe to clean his lips. "Did I miss any spots?" She asked, sweeping her loose waves to the side so he could see her neck.

"Mmhmm." He hummed then leaned in, "right here" and kissed her neck. "And here."

"You keep at it and we'll never make it inside." She said with a smile as she placed her hand on his chest and pushed him back.

"Oh alright." He pouted making Katie laugh as he got out then walked around and opened her door for her. "My lady." He offered her his arm being formal again.

"Mr. Salvatore." She smiled and hooked her arm through his.

They had stepped up the first of many concrete steps that led to the front door when Katie heard Elena and Stefan not far behind them. She turned and gave Elena a smile and wave then noticed that Aunt Jenna and Bonnie were standing behind her and Stefan. "Is that Katie with Damon?" Stefan asked Elena quietly after Katie turned back around, but not quiet enough that she couldn't hear them. "I thought he was with Caroline."

"Apparently they broke up. Caroline wasn't even mad that Katie's with him now. It's weird." Elena answered getting a "huh" from Stefan.

Katie popped open her clutch, took out her phone then tucked the clutch under her arm as they moved up a step. She pulled up Damon's contact then flipped her phone open to use the keyboard. She typed "You can hear them, right?" and showed him the screen. He hummed a positive answer. She erased the text then typed, "He thinks you're compelling me to be with you doesn't he?"

"Probably, but I don't care what he thinks." He said as he grabbed her phone and closed it. "Neither should you." He gave her a quick kiss on the temple then put her phone in her clutch when she held it up

Soon they came to the doorway where the mayor was standing, "Katie." He greeted her with a smile as he took her hand, "You've certainly grown up since the last time you came to one of these parties." He said as his eyes roamed her body, and he kissed the back of her hand. "How's your grandpa doing these days?"

Katie's smile faltered as her brain was thrown back to the many days Mr. Lockwood had spent drinking with her grandfather when she was younger. "Oh, he's still Grandpa. Drink, gym, work, repeat." She said plastering her smile back on as she stepped back and wrapped her arm around Damon's waist. "Have you met my boyfriend, Damon?" She asked making the mayor acknowledge him.

"Nice to meet you, Damon. Come on in. Make yourself at home." The mayor said as he shook his hand and Damon shook it back as he stepped inside.

"Thank you." Damon replied then let go of his hand and ushered Katie further inside.

She looked behind her to make sure the mayor was out of sight then wiped the back of her hand on the side of her dress. "I _hate _that slime ball."

"Why's that?" He asked, amused at her reaction to the mayor kissing her hand.

"Forever ago, he and Grandpa acted like father and son. They'd get drunk at the house all the time and guess what their favorite past time was." She sais as they walked around the house wandering from room to room when she didn't say what it was Damon got really worried and pulled her to a stop. She avoided his attempts to catch her eyes with his until he grabbed her chin and made her. "They took turns toughening me up until I managed to hide somewhere they couldn't find me. Usually some obscure spot in the basement."

"And how old were you?" Damon asked as he gave her side a light squeeze and they started wandering again.

"Maybe twelve or thriteen." She answered.

"Can I kill him?" He asked.

"If he wasn't the mayor I'd say go for it." Damon smiled deviously and pulled her a little closer into his side. "But he is so if he goes missing people will start asking questions." She whispered as they walked into a new room.

"Is that Damon Salvatore?" They heard Elena ask and Katie looked up to see Elena with her back to them, pointing to something hanging on the wall in a frame. "And Stefan Salvatore?"

"What is that?" Katie asked leaving Damon's side to stand next to Elena and look at the old brown paper with cursive writing on it.

"It's the guest registry from the first founder's party." Elena answered then looked behind her to see Damon walking over. "Their names are on it."

"They were the original Salvatore brothers." Damon lied to hide the fact that he and Stefan had really been there.

Katie, remembering that Damon had asked her to get Stefan away from Elena, heard a slow song playing and decided now was her chance. "Would you hate me if I asked Stefan for a dance? I really want to dance and Damon's being a party pooper."

Elena smiled at her friend in surprise. "Since when do you dance?"

"Since today. You only live once, remember?" She asked reminding Elena about what she had said when they were getting ready earlier.

"Right, the new attitude." She nodded. "Well I'm fine with it if Stefan is."

Both of the girls and Damon looked at Stefan. "Well I don't-"

"Pleeease." Katie interrupted him before he could say no. "Just one dance and I'll hand you back over to her for the rest of the night." She flashed him a pleading smile.

"Sure. Why not?" He said as he held his arm out to her and she took it.

He walked her to the dance floor in silence then placed his hand on her natural waist line and took her hand in his. She hated the awkwardness between them so she decided to try to break the ice. "We haven't had the chance to talk since the bonfire."

"No we haven't." He replied with a tight smile.

"I know this is awkward, but I figured since your dating my friend and I'm dating your brother that we should maybe get to know each other a little better." She stated.

He smiled a little. "You're so..."

"Weird." She finished for him with a overly perky smile and he laughed.

"Once again, I was going to say forward, but weird works." He told her with a laugh bringing her back to their first conversation at the bonfire. "You know we don't have to dance to get to know each other. I actually hate dancing."

"Thank god. If you can't tell by the fact that I haven't even moved my feet, I don't know how to dance." She said with a sigh.

"How about a drink then?" He offered. Then let go of her and she followed him to the side of the dance floor where he snagged two flutes of champagne.

"Sounds good to me." She said with a small smile as she looked around.

"You looking for someone?" He asked drawing her attention back to him.

"I was making sure sheriff Forbs wasn't close. She's kinda assumed the role of mother figure since my parents died. If she catches me drinking I'll get a lecture longer than a cvs receipt."

"How did they die, if you don't mind me asking?" He asked just to keep the conversation going.

"That's the bad thing, I don't even know." She shrugged and stared down at her drink. "I was ten when it happened and no one told me anything other than they were dead. They were on vacation in Louisiana during Marti Gras and they didn't come back." She shrugged then took a sip of her drink. "So I hope I didn't over step too bad at the bonfire." She said changing the subject.

"No." He said with a head shake and a closed lipped smile. "You care about her. I get it."

"Which is why I'm going to tell you that if you hurt her I will personally kick your butt." She told him with a pleasing tone and smile.

He scoffed. "You can try."

"And I will fail." She laughed. "But that won't stop me from trying."

"Duly noted." He told her with a mock serious look.

"What's duly noted?" Damon asked as he and Elena walked over. Damon stood in front of Stefan while Elena stood in front of Katie.

"Oh, Katie was just telling me how she's gonna kick my butt if I hurt Elena." He said with a small smile across his shoulder at Katie.

Both Elena and Damon cracked a smile. "Hey, I play softball. I know how to swing a bat." She defended herself.

"Do you want a drink, Damon?" Stefan asked randomly as he held his champagne glass out to his brother.

"No thanks, I'll pass." Damon answered.

Things fell awkwardly silent before Elena held her hand out to Stefan, "Do you have another dance in you?"

"Absolutely." He took her hand and walked her to the dance floor.

"Do you want to?" Damon asked as he jerked his head to the dance floor.

"I don't know how, remember? That's why me and Stefan ended up standing over here talking." She said and he grabbed her hand and jerked his head to the dance floor with a small smile. She took one last big drink of champagne then set in down and let him lead her out onto the floor.

He placed his hand on her hip and pulled her close then grabbed her hand that wasn't resting on his shoulder in his other hand. "Just don't step on my feet and you're good." She smiled and tried to look down at her feet but he took his hand off her hip and pushed her chin up. "My eyes are up here Miss Finnegan."

"But what if I-" she started and he pressed his lips to hers cutting her off.

"I've got you." He gave her an encouraging smile. "Just move with me." She started moving with him, stumbling a few small times before she got the hang of it. "See, it's not so bad."

"I feel like people are staring at me." She admitted without looking around.

"If they are it's because you are the most beautiful woman at this party." He told her with a bright smile that made her smile. "Hey, so what was all that you only live once, new attitude stuff that you and Elena were talking about earlier?"

"Oh, you caught that huh?" She asked sheepishly.

"It was kind of hard to miss." He pointed out with a curious look.

"It was just something we were all talking about at her house earlier." She said with a shrug.

"That's the only explanation I get?" He asked looking confused.

"Girl talk stays with the girls." She countered and he frowned. "You'll figure it out later, I promise." She said with a smile that fell when she noticed Elena and Stefan arguing while they danced. "What's up with them?"

"She wants to know more about him and his past with Katherine and he won't tell her." He answered making her give him a questioning look. "I've kinda been eavesdropping on them. I have really good hearing."

"Well then I guess it's working." She heard Elena say loud enough for everyone to hear before she left him standing on the dance floor alone. Katie looked away from Stefan to see Damon giving him a smug look.

"You know it's rude to eavesdrop, right?" She asked pulling his attention away from his brother.

"I kind of do it without meaning to sometimes." He shrugged and she rolled her eyes. As Stefan left the dance floor, Damon pressed his forehead to hers and looked into her eyes. "Have I told you how beautiful you are tonight?"

"Only a few times." She said with a smile as the song ended. Damon let go of her side but kept her hand in his as they walked off the dance floor and into the house. They were wondering through the formal dining room when all of the candles suddenly lit themselves. "Bonnie?" Katie asked spotting her friend about to leave the room. Bonnie turned back to her with a freaked out look on her face. "Did you just-"

Bonnie looked back and forth between Katie and Damon then asked, "Can I steal her for a minute?"

"Of course." Damon said then kissed Katie's temple and whispered, "Meet me at the top of the stairs when you're done."

Katie nodded as he let go of her hand and left the room as Bonnie walked over to her friend. "It happened earlier while you all of you were dancing thankfully Caroline didn't see. Then I came in here and all the candles were out. I just tried to light one then whoosh."

Bonnie was clearly freaking out. "Look, I know you're freaked, I would be too if I was you, but you need to talk to your grams before this gets way out of hand. What if the next time you try to light a candle you end up burning your house down?"

"I don't want to be a witch, Katie." She was almost crying.

"I know. Maybe your grams can show you how to opt out of your powers or something?" Katie suggested hopefully.

"Maybe." Bonnie said sounding like someone had killed her dog. "I'm going to head home. Have a good rest of your night with Damon, you two look good together." She told Katie with a small smile then walked away.

With things with Bonnie settled as much as they were going to get, Katie headed to the stairs and saw Damon's back where he was leaning against the railing. "Hi." She placed her hand on his side when she got to the top and he looked around to make sure no one was watching before he led her to a room with a few historical pieces sitting around in it. "I don't think these things are actually on display."

"I know, which is why I need you to keep an eye out while I get the crystal." He told her. She turned so that she could see him and out the door. She watched both carefully as he grabbed a box, opened it up, then popped off one of the inside panels. She turned her eyes to the door and when she heard the clank of wood on glass Katie knew he had found it. He walked up behind her, turned her to face him in the dimly lit room and held the crystal out to her. She took it and turned toward the light. She thought it was kind of ugly, but refrained from saying so. "I know, it's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it's powerful."

Katie just handed it back to him with a small smile. "So are we leaving now?" She asked as he tucked the crystal into his jacket pocket. She was hoping their night could last a little longer.

"Nope." He said with a smile before he grabbed her hand, threading their fingers together. "Take a walk with me?"

Katie smiled. "Of course."

He led her outside then to the back lawn where Katie took off her heels and walked barefoot in the grass. They walked quietly until they came to stand next to a tree near the edge of the water and far away from the party, "I uh want to thank you for coming with me tonight." He pulled a long black jewelry box out of the inside of his coat. "So I had this made for you." He turned the box to face her.

When he opened it her eyes landed on a necklace with a silver moon pendant hanging off of it. A sapphire star rested in the hook of the moon. "Damon, it's beautiful." She said as she ran her finger over the moon.

When he took it out of the box she turned her back on him and lifted her hair. "There's and herb in the moon, called vervain." He informed her quietly as he put the chain around her neck, latched the hook and she dropped her hair. "It'll protect you from vampire influence."

"So you can't mess with my mind?" She asked as she brought the pendant to her nose and sniffed. It smelled floral, but not as off putting as she found the scent of a rose.

"Or Stefan." He added.

"Do you think he would try to mess with me?" She asked placing the pendant back on her chest.

"I don't think so, but you never know." He said looking worried. "I just want to keep you safe." he cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her. It started off soft, but soon turned needy and almost hungry. "Okay, I can't take it anymore." In a flashed he had her behind the tree, hidden from prying eyes. "I need you." he kissed her neck hard, pulling a moan from her before he started kissing down her neck to the pushed up cleavage that the dress showed off then he kneeled down and put her leg over his shoulder. He kissed his way up her bare leg until he got to her inner thigh and looked up at her through his lashes for permission. She nodded and imbedded her fingers in his hair as he sank his teeth into her inner thigh.

"God, Damon." She sighed and leaned her head back against the tree. But when she heard him cough she looked down at him. "What's the matter?" she asked seeing him fall to the ground.

"Vervain." He answered sounding like he couldn't breath.

"What?" she asked, kneeling down, panic clear in her eyes.

"In your blood." He rasped.

"Oh my god…how?" she asked frantically.

"I knew I couldn't spike your drink." Stefan walked up. "So I spiked hers."

"What?" Katie asked looking away from Damon's eyes to glare at Stefan. "Why would you do that?"

"He's a monster, Katie, he's hurting you and killing people. He had to be stopped." Stefan said looking down at her as if he pitied her.

She looked down at Damon and cupped his cheek in her hand. "Is the vervain going to kill him?"

"No, it just weakens him." He answered with a flat uncaring face as he watched her staring down at Damon, worried. "You know what he is?" he asked with a tilt of his head.

"Yeah, I know." She answered not looking at him.

"Katie…" Damon sighed and reached up and touched her face.

Without saying a word Stefan picked up Damon. "Where are you taking him?" she asked, tears slipping down her cheeks, but Stefan whooshed away, not answering.

It took all of two seconds for the tears on Katie's face to get wiped away and replaced with anger. Before she left the cover of the tree she pulled a bandage out of her clutch, having anticipated Damon biting her during the party, and covered the bite on her inner thigh.

She was leaving the party when she ran into Elena. "Hey. What's wrong? Have you been crying?"

"Your boyfriend just royally pissed me off." Katie answered with flared nostrils.

"What are you talking about?" Elena asked, confused.

"Ask Stefan." She snapped then walked away.

When she got outside she was thankful that Damon's car was still there, his keys and a note in the driver's seat. "Meet me at the boarding house. We need to talk. –S." She wadded up the note and tossed it into the floorboard as she got in the car and cranked it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 6**

Katie sat in Damon's car staring at the boarding house with flared nostrils and a heart that was beating a mile a minute. She knew she needed to go inside and talk this out with Stefan, but at the moment if she went inside she would fly off the handle like she had with Caroline and she couldn't do that. It wasn't the way to handle this and even though he didn't seem the type, Stefan was still a vampire and could easily kill her if he wanted to.

So she leaned back in the comfortable seat and focused on taking deep, claming breaths until her heart slowed down and her hands stopped shaking. "Okay, Katie, you can do this…keep it together." With a steady hand she opened the door and got out.

Her hand stopped half way up to knock on the door and started shaking, but she forced it to stop and knocked three times. A man she remembered seeing when she took a tour of the boarding house when she was little, answered the door. "Hi, you must be Katie. Stefan told me you might be stopping by. Come on in." he jerked his head as he stepped aside.

Katie walked in and looked around. The house looked pretty much the same as she remembered. It had too many rugs old lavish furnishings and a certain amount of old school elegance. "Where is Stefan?" while she was calm for now she really wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.

"He is taking care of Damon." He said as she followed him into a living room where two couches sat on each side of a big fireplace.

"And what exactly does 'taking care of Damon' mean?" she asked trying not to get impatient with the guy.

"Look, I really don't want to get in the middle of this any more than I already have. Have a seat and Stefan will come talk to you when he's done." He motioned her to the couch then walked away.

After sitting on the couch for fifteen minutes, she grabbed her cell phone out of her clutch, flipped it open to use the keyboard and texted Damon. "Please tell me you have your cell phone on you."

"Nope. I have it." Katie looked up to see Stefan walking into the room holding up Damon's phone. "He won't be talking to anyone for a very long time."

"Where is he?" she asked standing up, no longer able to just sit there.

"He's locked up, downstairs." Stefan answered coming to a stop in front of the fireplace.

"Well, will you let him out?" she asked letting some attitude slip.

"I think you know why I can't do that, Katie." He answered with tight lips and a shake of his head. "You know that he's the one that killed Coach Tanner, right?" Katie tossed her clutch and Damon's keys on the couch then crossed her arms over her chest as she nodded. "Then you know it's only a matter of time before he kills again." Katie's anger faded and slowly started turning into guilt. She drew her foot back and started tapping the closed toe of her shoe on the floor, attempting to keep it together. Stefan was making it really hard to keep overlooking Damon's wrong doings. "He hurt Caroline, he was hurting you and Coach Tanner isn't the only person he's killed since he's shown up here."

"He wasn't hurting me." She argued. "I know what he is and I know what he's done to me. I wanted it."

"You only think you wanted it because he's messed with your head and made you think so." Stefan argued back.

"He hasn't compelled me, Stefan." She was getting angry again. "I know more than you think I do. Like I know about compulsion and I know that if you two aren't wearing your rings you will burn in the sun. I know that vervain is basically vampire repellant and I hate that you spiked my drink with it."

"He threatened to hurt Elena, Katie." Stefan told her knowing it would get her attention.

"You're lying." She accused as her foot stopped tapping and her eyes started watering.

"I wish I was, but I'm not."

"Why would he do that?" she asked.

"Because he is a bad person, Katie, he is manipulative and every move he makes has an ulterior motive. He didn't show up here just to make my life a living hell. He has a bigger plan and I don't know what it is, but I know if he goes through with it more people will die." Not being able to stop it, a tear slipped down her cheek. "Don't cry over him, he's a monster, he doesn't deserve your tears."

Katie wanted to slap him, but she knew it wouldn't hurt him so she restrained the urge. "I know that he killed Mr. Tanner to prove to you that he has no humanity left inside him. I don't know why he wants you to think that, I didn't feel like asking and opening that can of worms, but I obviously see a different person when I look at him. Call it manipulation, I don't care, but I _refuse_ to believe that he is completely heartless."

"You can't tell me you don't see why I'm doing this." He was getting aggravated with her.

She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear. "No…I get it…I just don't like it."

"The best thing you can do is forget about him and move on with your life." Stefan told her sternly.

Katie squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to hold back tears as she nodded and opened them back up. "Can I at least tell him goodbye?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, he's weak, but he's also angry which means he's unpredictable. I wouldn't put it past him to kill you just to get back at me." He informed her with a sympathetic look.

"He won't hurt me, please… let me see him and I'll act like nothing ever happened." She begged and Stefan nodded.

"Follow me." He waved a hand over his shoulder. She followed him down a flight of stairs into a really old unfinished part of the basement and stopped when they got to a big metal door with a barred window. "He's in there."

"Katie." she heard Damon groan as Stefan grabbed the latch and pulled the door open revealing Damon where he leaned against the wall, dirty from lying on the floor of the cell.

"I'm here." She said as she rushed in and fell to her knees beside him. He tried to look at her, but couldn't keep his eyes open. "I'm sorry. I didn't know he spiked my drink."

"It's not your fault." He whispered then coughed.

Katie looked behind her to see Stefan still standing at the door. She ignored him and turned back to Damon. "I'm still sorry."

"You came to say goodbye?" he asked blinking slowly at her as she moved a leg over his lap and cupped his face in her hands.

"I don't want to." She pressed her forehead to his and closed her eyes.

She felt his hands move to hold her for a second before he got too weak and they slipped to rest on his lap against her butt. "But Stefan's making you." she nodded and tears slipped from her eyes, lading on his face. He mustered enough strength to cup her cheek in his hand and wipe a tear. She grabbed his hand and held it there. "Kiss me." She placed her shaking lips on his for a slow, sad kiss that he returned. When it broke she placed her face in the bend of his neck and wrapped her arms around him. "You should go… move on with your life… forget about me like Stefan told you too."

"I'll move on because I have no other choice, but have you met you?" she asked with a sad smile in her voice that made Damon crack a smile. "You're not a forgettable person."

"Come on, times up." Stefan spoke up reminding her that he was there. Katie pulled her face from Damon's neck and pressed her lips to his, kissing him until he had to pull away. "Come on, I'll give you a ride home."

"I'll walk." She commented coldly as she pulled herself up off of Damon and walked out of the cell.

"Don't…you dare… let her walk." She heard Damon tell his brother then start coughing.

* * *

"I don't get it." Stefan said from where he sat in the driver's seat of Damon's car.

"You've got to be a little more specific." She said not taking her eyes off of the side window where she watched the trees pass by.

"Why he hasn't compelled you, why you were okay with what he is and what he's done." He said, really just thinking out loud at this point.

"No, you wouldn't would you." she said still not looking at him. "Do you have any intentions at all of telling Elena what you are?" she asked to change the subject.

"No, I moved here to have normal life. Damon wouldn't let me, but now that he's out of the picture I can."

"She's going to figure it out, you know." She said finally picking her head up off the window. "She's already suspicious. So unless you start telling her about yourself she's going to keep prodding until she figures out what you're not telling her." she looked over to see him looking at her with a creased brow. "Damon was eavesdropping on the two of you earlier at the party." She said with a shrug and an eye roll. He didn't say anything back and Katie got lost in thought, replaying the night with Damon in her head a few times as she got angry again.

"We're here." Stefan informed her and she realized that she didn't even know when he had stopped in front of her house. Seeing her grandpa's car in the driveway she looked at the house to see him sitting on the porch, waiting for her, so she stayed in the car.

"If Damon is weakened, does that mean any compulsion that he's worked on someone will be weakened too?" she asked looking away from her grandpa to finally look at Stefan.

"No, that will stay until he dies, or unless whoever he compelled becomes a vampire." He answered.

"And do you intend on killing him?" she asked blinking back more tears.

"No. During the dark ages when a vampire's actions threatened to expose or bring harm upon the entire race, they would face judgment." Stefan started explaining. "They sought to reeducate them rather than to punish them. Not feeding will make him weaker and weaker and eventually he won't be able to move or speak. He'll essentially become a living corpse, unable to ever hurt anyone ever again. I'll move him someplace safe and after fifty years we'll reevaluate."

Katie bit her lip and nodded, trying not to cry. "Good to know." She shoved the door open and got out.

Stefan got out and stopped her from walking away. "I am so…sorry."

Katie looked at her grandpa to see that he had moved to the porch steps, watching them. She gritted her teeth then turned her glaring eyes back to Stefan. "You ruined the most perfect night of my life. Sorry doesn't cut it." she walked around him and over to her grandfather who was blocking her way up the steps.

"Where were you?" Grandpa asked his voice hard and hateful like always.

"I went to the founder's party." She answered tiredly. "Can I go inside now please?"

"The party was over hours ago." He replied not answering her question.

"So?" she asked getting aggravated.

"So where have you been?" he asked taking a step closer, towering over her.

Knowing he couldn't hurt her she glared up at him challengingly. "I've been hooking up with my boyfriend in the back of his car." She lied just to piss him off.

"You-" he started with a sneer that she knew would lead to a beating if he hadn't been compelled not to touch her.

"Skanky, tacky, slut, piece of shit, motherless whore?" she finished for him making him stare at her slack jawed. "Come up with some new insults because I am _sick_ of hearing you call me the same untrue things over and over and over again just because you hate me and have anger issues." He just kept staring at her like he couldn't believe she was talking back to him for the first time in her life. "Are we done here? Because I have had a really bad night and I do not need you making it worse."

Her grandpa just nodded, still dumbstruck. So she walked around him and into the house.

* * *

She worked at the grill for the rest of the weekend then when Monday rolled around she put on a good face and pretended that she was fine. That day during lunch, Bonnie noticed she wasn't smiling as much as she had been before and asked her what was up. Katie lied and told her that Damon dumped her, left town and wasn't coming back. Bonnie knew her well enough to know she wasn't okay, but she believed the rest. Katie noticed that Stefan wasn't at school and when she asked Elena about him she said she hadn't seen him or spoken to him since the party. He left her a voicemail telling her that he had something that he needed to do and that he would explain in a few days.

Thursday morning Katie stood at Elena's locker talking to her and Bonnie about how over the top Caroline was being with the carwash fundraiser tomorrow when Stefan walked up. "Hey, uh, you know I gotta go…be somewhere right now." Bonnie quickly dismissed herself knowing that Elena and Stefan needed to talk.

"See you later, Elena." Katie gave Elena a small smile and ignored Stefan all together.

Later that day she was working at the bar when Elena walked in and sat down at one of the tables in Katie's section. So she grabbed her order pad and a pen and walked over. "What's up?"

"Just waiting on Stefan." Elena answered with a small smile. "If he shows."

"Want anything while you wait?" Katie asked refusing to talk about Stefan.

"No, I'm fine, thanks." Katie started to walk away when Elena stopped her. "Hey, you never said what he did at the party that made you so mad."

Katie sighed and looked around to see if anyone else was sitting in her section that needed to be served. It was empty so she walked back over and sat down. "I never said, because it wasn't my business to tell. It's still not."

"Why do I get the feeling he had something to do with you and Damon breaking up?" she asked looking at her friend for answers she couldn't give.

"All I can say is ask Stefan." Katie saw someone sit in her section. "I have to get back to work." She stood and headed over to the couple at the table, feeling like shit for not being able to tell her friend everything she needed to know.

Almost an hour later Stefan finally showed up and he and Elena argued. After she walked out on him Stefan spotted Katie handing someone at the bar a basket of curly fries and walked over. "You have a minute?" Katie nodded and walked down to the end of the bar where no one was sitting. "What did you say to her?"

"You mean other than, ask Stefan?" she asked seeing a water spot on the bar so she grabbed a rag and cleaned it to look busy. "Nothing. I gave you the opportunity to tell her whatever lie you want to." She tossed the rag under the bar, "Now if you don't mind I have a paycheck to earn."

* * *

The next day after school she once again put on a good face and went to the car wash fundraiser that thankfully she was able to get off work for. Katie was helping Bonnie and Matt dry a car when a new car drove up and Bonnie told Tiki, one of their fellow cheerleaders, that it was hers to wash. "Why do I get the homely ones?" she asked as she set down her bucket and sponge and turned to the driver of the car. "Just to be clear your car's a p.o.s. I mean, we can wash it but it'll still be a p.o.s."

"You don't have to be rude." Bonnie spoke up.

"No, rude is uglying up the road with that junker." Tiki argued.

Bonnie looked at Katie who was drying the car and looking at Bonnie over her shoulder, then back to glare at Tiki. Katie was turning back to finish drying the car when she saw the bucket of water explode in Tiki's face soaking her from head to toe as she freaked and started spraying water everywhere. Matt being the sweet guy he is, grabbed the water hose from her and kinked it as he handed her a towel.

"Was that you?" Katie asked Bonnie quietly and she nodded. "Not that it wasn't hilarious and completely deserved, but did you mean to?"

"No, I kind of zoned out." Bonnie admitted. "I hate this."

"I know you do." Katie sighed as the two of them got back to drying the car that was now wet again thanks to Tiki sparying it during her freak out. Looking around Katie noticed Stefan washing a car by himself while Elena sat at the money table. "Hey, I need to go talk to Stefan about something, you and Matt got this?" Katie asked and Bonnie nodded at her.

Stefan gave Katie a polite smile when she walked over and grabbed a soapy rag out of one of the buckets. "You still hate me?" he asked quietly.

"I'm trying not to because you're with my best friend, but it's not going so well." She answered honestly. "But that's not why I came over here."

"Then why did you?" he asked while running a rag over the hood of a car.

"You got back in Elena's good graces." She started as she washed the windshield. "I just wanted to know what lie you fed her, that way our stories don't get crossed because I know she will eventually cross examine us."

"I told her that Damon has a substance abuse problem and I was missing for four days talking him into going into rehab. You're mad at me for exposing that fact to you at the party and forcing him to go away."

"Okay, so Damon's in rehab, got it." Katie threw her rag into the nearby bucket and walked away.

She went back to helping Bonnie on a new car that had driven up. They had just finished when Tiki walked up with two push brooms in her hands. "Sweeper duty."

"Come again?" Katie asked, in no mood to be bullied by Tiki.

"You two have to clean the pavement." Tiki forced the broom into Katie's hand.

"It's a car wash. By definition the pavement's clean." Bonnie argued.

"But not dry." Tiki argued.

"And we have to listen to you since when?" Katie asked, stepping up to Tiki.

"Caroline bailed. I'm a senior. That puts me in charge." Tiki handed Bonnie the other broom and started to walk around her, but Katie tripped her with the end of the broom, making her stumble. "What the hell, Katie?" Tiki snapped getting ready to hit her, but she stopped and looked over Katie's shoulder with wide eyes.

Katie turned around to see that a trail of water leading from Bonnie to a car that was engulfed in flames. "Tiki, call the fire department." Katie urged throwing the broom to the ground and Tiki took off running. "Bonnie." Katie yelled and grabbed her shoulders shaking her. "Bonnie snap out of it."

Stefan ran over, "What's wrong?"

"Bonnie's doing this." Katie whispered to him. "Bonnie!" Katie snapped and Bonnie finally blinked.

She looked back and forth between the two of them with wide eyes. "Did I do this?"

"We think so, yeah." Katie said with a nod.

"No body else saw, did they?" She asked still freaked.

"No, I don't think so." Stefan told her and Bonnie nodded then walked off. Stefan was about to ask her a question when Katie's phone started ringing.

Looking at the number she saw that it was her boss. "Hello?" she answered with a aggravated sigh. "Vicki flaked again?" she asked as she headed over to the building where she had left her bag of stuff and grabbed it. "Yeah, I'm on my way." Since she was already close she walked to work instead of driving and clocked in.

Her shift was almost over when her phone started ringing, she was just going to ignore it, since it was an unknown number, but something told her to answer it. So she pressed talk and put it to her ear as she headed to the back. "Hello?"

"Katie, hey, it's Stefan. I got your number from Damon's phone. He got out, have you seen him?" he asked frantically.

"No, how did he get out?" she asked, taking off her apron not bothering to put it on the hook before she grabbed her bag and tossed it over her shoulder.

"I don't know, he got to Zach somehow and killed him." He answered and Katie froze. "I need you to get to your house and stay there. If he comes to you call me don't try to talk to him. You hear me?"

"Yeah, Stefan, I hear you." she said as she started moving again and headed to her car.

"There's something else."

"What?" she asked as she pulled open her car door and slid inside.

"Elena knows about what we are. I'm going to tell her everything including the truth about Damon. Do you want me to tell her that you know?"

"No." she answered quickly. "She need's to hear that from me."

"Okay." He told her as she started her car. "And Katie,"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful." He told her and she hung up on him.

Her grandfather was home when she got home, but unlike usual he didn't confront her about anything. Her converse thudded against the wood stairs as she ran up to her room, hoping to find Damon sitting on her bed waiting for her when she opened the door. But her shoulders slumped when she slung her door opened and found nothing.

As the night drug on Katie's eyes grew heavy and the book she had been reading to keep herself awake fell to the floor with a thud as sleep overcame her.

As she slept, Damon quietly let himself into her open window. It was easy to tell as he took in Katie, passed out still in her black t-shirt and Jean shorts that she had been waiting for him. The sight caused a pain to shoot through his chest. He'd just killed three random people and Zack. He knew that once Stefan told her she would have nothing else to do with him. Out of the need to touch her he leaned down, swept her hair to the side and placed a kiss to her temple before he whooshed out of her window. Katie stirred, but didn't wake.

* * *

As the morning sun beamed through her open window her alarm sounded, waking her to get ready for work. So she groggily turned the alarm off, pulled up Stefan's number and texted him. "He didn't come to my place. Any signs of him?"

She was getting out of the shower when her phone chimed. She dried off her hands and picked it up to see that it was Stefan. "No. He didn't go to Elena's either. Just go about your day as usual. He doesn't have his ring. I'll call you if I find out anything." So she did as Stefan said. If Damon wanted to see her he would've came last night.

She had just gotten off work and was getting into her car when her phone started ringing. "Stefan, please tell me you found him."

"Yeah, he's at the boarding house." Katie sighed in relief. "But I need you at Elena's. Damon turned Vicki. She's new, hungry and on the loose. I had to leave Elena and Jeremy alone and she could really use a friend who knows about all this.'

"Okay I'm on my way." She cranked the car and held her phone to her ear with her shoulder as she stared to Elena's.

"Katie, you need to tell her _everything_." Hs tone was serious.

"I will tell her that I know about you and Damon and let her take it from there." She answered. "She's going to hate me enough just for not telling her that I knew."

"She won't hate you forever."

"You just find Vicki." She hung up and tossed her phone into the passenger seat.

When she got to Elena's she let herself in. "Katie?" Elena asked with Jeremy right behind her as they met her at the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Stefan called. Said you could use a friend." She answered then turned her eyes to Jeremy. "Would you mind giving us minute?" He just headed upstairs.

Katie followed Elena to the kitchen and started helping her clean up. "I don't even know where to start so I'm just going to come out and say it. I know what Damon and Stefan are." Katie set a stack of plates in the sink then turned to her shocked friend. "I've known since the night the comet passed."

"You've known all this time and you didn't tell me?" Elena asked disbelief and hurt clear in her eyes.

"There are so many reasons I didn't tell you. It wasn't my secret to tell. On top of that Damon swore me to secrecy and said that you were completely safe because Stefan only feeds on animals." Katie started and the words would have kept on flowing out of her mouth but Elena held up her hand stopping her.

"Did Damon blackmail you into dating him?" She asked realizing that Damon might have messed with her mind. "Did he hurt you? Is that why you were mad at the party?"

"No to all of those questions." Katie answered trying to simplify the complicated.

"Are you sure? Because Stefan said that vampires can mess with your memories and if he did then-" Elena was asking but Katie cur her off.

"He never messed with my head, Elena." Katie's eyes slipped to the countertop no longer able to look her friend in the eyes. "Can I see your necklace?" she asked holding out her hand. Elena grabbed the pendent in her fist and shook her head no. "Let me guess, it has vervain in it because Stefan didn't want anyone getting into your head including him." Elena gave Katie a tilted head, questioning look. "So does mine." She said holding up her moon and start pendent. "Damon gave it to me at the party to prove to me that he wouldn't mess with my head."

"But Stefan said that he found him feeding on you. That he was hurting you." Elena said blinking back her confusion.

"Damon _was _feeding on me at the party." Katie answered. "He's been feeding on me since he broke up with Caroline. I knew he had been messing with her head and feeding on her so to protect her and anyone else from him I asked him feed on me and he agreed."

"How could you do that?" Elena liked back tears.

"It gets worse." Katie didn't answer her question.

"How could it get any worse than you letting him feed on you Katie?" Elena asked placing her hands on the bar that separated them.

"I...have feelings for him." Katie answered as she drew back her foot and started tapping the toe of her converse into the floor. "I know Stefan thinks Damon is a heartless monster, and I know he's done bad things, but he's not heartless."

"How can you defend him? He killed Vicki. He turned her into a blood craving monster. He's _killed_ people." Elena practically yelled.

Katie wanted to tell Elena that her grandfather had treated her like a human punching bag for the past seven years of her life and that Damon swooped in a changed all of that. However, she decided that tonight wasn't the best time to drop that bomb on her. So she simply said, "I made a mistake." Katie blinked back her tears. "All I can do is say that I never wanted anyone to get hurt and ask for your forgiveness."

"You need to leave." Elena told her sternly.

Katie bit her lips closed and nodded. "Okay." She headed for the door and when she pulled it open Damon was on the other side. "Damon." Katie gasped and stumbled backwards.

"Leave, both of you." Katie looked behind her to see that Elena had followed her out of the kitchen.

"No need to be rude, I'm just looking for my brother." He told Elena with a sarcastic smile. "Huh, you're scared of me. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say Stefan finally fessed up." He looked down at Katie taking in her hard face. "And you told her you know too."

"Stay away from me." Elena warned.

"No problem. Tell me where my brother went and I'll leave." Damon said still standing in the doorway, blocked by Katie.

"He's out looking for Vicki." Katie answered quietly.

"Thank you." He said then turned around and walked off. When he saw Katie come out after him he stopped and grabbed her hand as she tried to walk by him.

"Don't touch me." She practically hissed and pulled her hand back as if she had been burned.

He watched her get into her car before whooshed into the passenger seat. "They've turned you against me haven't they?" He asked quietly.

"To be honest, I don't know." Katie answered exasperatedly. "You killed four people and turned Vicki, I don't know what to think."

"I killed four people because Stefan starved me. If he hadn't locked me up in the first place I wouldn't have needed to." He argued, turning sideways in the seat to look at her.

"And what about Vicki? Hmm? You going to blame that on Stefan too?" She asked with an attitude induced away of her head.

"I have no excuse for that." He answered letting his eyes fall to the floor board of her car.

"After Stefan told me that you got out I waited for you...all night. Why didn't you just come to me, Damon?" She asked holding back tears.

"I was afraid I would hurt you." He answered in a partial truth.

"Nope try again." She told him folding her arms over her chest.

"I knew after you found out I'd killed people that you wouldn't want me back." He answered honestly this time.

"That's the bad thing about all of this, Damon. I would have." Her words made him look at her like she was crazy. "If someone starved me for a week then plopped a fresh cheeseburger into my lap there's no way in hell I wouldn't eat it. I wouldn't have been happy by any means about you sucking people dry, but I would've understood it. But instead of just coming to me you turned an innocent girl. _That_ is what hurt me. _That_ is what I can't forgive." Damon opened the door and put a foot out on the pavement then whooshed out of sight.

* * *

The next day Katie got a text from Elena asking her to meet her at her house after school. Katie agreed, afraid that Elena was going to tell her that she couldn't be friends with her anymore. When she got to Elena's instead of letting herself in like she used to she knocked on the door. Jeremy answered, "Hey, since when do you knock?" he asked with a confused smile.

"Since your sister and I got into a fight." She answered.

"Like you two haven't fought before." He said with a small laugh as he opened the door further and stepped aside, letting her in. "She's in her room." he jerked his head up the stairs and Katie gave him a small smile in thanks.

"Hey." Katie said as she knocked on Elena's door and opened it.

"Hey." Elena sighed as she grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest.

"Are you still mad at me?" she asked as she walked over and stood at the foot of the bed.

"A little." Elena sighed and Katie sat down on the foot of the bed. "So let's start with what all Damon has told you about…what they are." Elena started as she motioned for Katie to start talking.

"Okay." Katie drawled as she kicked her shoes off and moved to sit Indian style. "I know that a wooden stake to the heart will kill them. They can mess with your memories and basically control your mind if they want to. They can jump high. I've seen Damon jump from the ground to my roof. Their blood can heal wounds. They will burn in the sun if they don't' have on their rings. Vervain weakens them and if they don't feed they will basically mummify. That's what Stefan was planning on doing when he locked Damon in the basement." She laid it all out on the table and the longer she spoke the higher Elena's eye brows got. "Why, what do you know about them?"

Elena shook her head, "Not even half of that." She answered as she turned her eyes to the bed. "What all do you know about their past with Katherine?"

"Just that she dated both of them and wanted all three of them to be together. They both loved her." she answered honestly. "Damon hasn't told me much about her other than he liked her laugh and she was apparently really pretty. Oh and she was a vampire"

"That's about all I know too. They aren't very open about her are they?" Elena asked curiously.

"Well, if you were in their shoes would you be open about it?" Katie asked with a head tilt.

"No I guess not." Elena said with a shake of her head.

"So how are you and Stefan after everything that happened with Vicki?" Katie asked hesitantly not knowing if that was a subject that they could discuss.

"We broke up." She said as she blinked back tears. "I just can't do it. I can't put up with the lies and the secrets and people getting hurt." She ran her fingers through her hair pushing it out of her face and shrugged not knowing what else she could say. "What about you and Damon? Are you two still…whatever you were?"

"Yeah…"Katie drawled as she tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear. "I never really knew what we were, but I can't forgive him for turning Vicki. So whatever it was is over now."

"I still don't see how you could like him in the first place." Elena commented. "He's not a good person. How could you see anything _but _bad in him?"

Katie took in a shaky breath, getting ready for what she was about to tell one of her best friends. "I was going to tell you and Bonnie and Caroline at the same time, but…" Katie stopped when a tear slipped down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away. "Didn't you guy's ever notice how often I had bruises…how often I got hurt?"

"Yeah, but you're clumsy and you play sports…it happens." Katie started shaking her head wondering if her friends were blind or if she was just that good at hiding it. "What are you trying to say?"

"My grandpa…" Katie said her hands shaking from trying to hold back her tears.

"No." Elena said tears forming in her brown eyes as she realized what Katie was trying to tell her. "Tell me you're not saying what I think you're saying." Katie just turned her eyes to the white comforter on the bed and let the tears fall. "All these years…all this time…the broken wrist from softball…the broken ankle from track that was all…Your grandpa's doing?"

Katie finally looked up and nodded, tears slipping down her lightly freckled cheeks. She took her glassed off and Elena handed her some tissues off of the night stand. "Yeah." She nodded as she wiped her face.

"I don't get it. Why did you keep it a secret so long?" she asked confused.

"I knew that if I told then I would get taken away from the only home I've ever known. Not to mention my friends." she said with a shrug.

"So why are you telling me now? What does this have to do with Damon?" Elena asked.

"Damon figured out what Grandpa was doing. After the football game, Grandpa was…upset, that Coach Tanner died and he decided to take it out on me. Damon heard what was going on, barged in and threatened to kill him."

Elena's brows raised and her mouth fell open. "He didn't…did he?"

"I'm not gonna lie a part of me wanted him to, but no. Instead he compelled him to never touch me again." She answered getting a headache from crying so much. "After that he helped me to my room, made sure none of my ribs were broken then stayed with me." Katie said with a shrug.

"Yeah, but on that same night he murdered our teacher." Elena argued.

"I'm aware." Katie nodded. "He also didn't have to help me. He could've carried on his merry way and let grandpa beat me to a pulp, but he didn't. He made my life easier. I'm no longer afraid to open my front door, wondering if I'm going to get a black eye when I walk through it. For the first time in seven years I was truly happy. I'm not making excuses for him I just want you to understand why you and I see him so differently." Elena nodded as things fell quiet between them for a bit. "So are we good?" Katie asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, we're good." Elena sighed as she fell back to lay on the bed. "This is all just such a big mess."

"Yep." Katie said popping the p at the end of the word then laid down next to Elena and hugged a pillow to her chest. "At least I don't have to keep secrets from you anymore." Katie admitted.

"So we're keeping Bonnie and Caroline out of this?" Elena asked.

"I think it would be safer if they don't know." Katie answered.

"Agreed." Elena said before things fell silent again.

"So is Stefan a good kisser?" Katie asked in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Katie!" Elena laughed and hit Katie on her shoulder.

"What?" Katie laughed. "You know if Caroline was here she would ask."

"Yeah she'd probably pry the answer out of me." Elena said as she sat up. "Truth is I don't have much to compare it to."

"At least you have Matt to compare it to." Katie said as she sat up. "I've got nothing."

"Wait I thought you and Tyler…seven minutes in heaven, junior high?" Elena asked and Katie shook her head. "What? Even Tyler said that you guys made out."

"Nope." Katie said with a small smile. "We both lied to keep everyone from knowing that we were chickens."

"So Damon was your first kiss?" Elena asked in awe. "How was it?"

"Not bad considering I had no earthly idea what I was doing, but he kind of took the wheel and crashed my train of thought into a brick wall so…pretty damn good." She laughed and shrugged.

"Yeah Stefan's pretty good too." Elena finally admitted with a raised brow and a smirk. "It's too bad things are so complicated with them."

"Yep." Katie answered then hopped up off of the bed. "I'm gonna head home. I've got a crap ton of homework to do and work after school tomorrow."

"Alright, see you later." Elena waved.

Katie waved over her shoulder and headed home.


	7. Chapter 7

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 7**

For the next month Bonnie kept to herself, staying busy with her grams on the weekends, Stefan and Damon had their hands full trying to teach Vicki how to be a functional, non harmful vampire. Elena was overseeing the process while Katie decided to stay out of it. So, for the most part, things were as normal as they could be given that fact that there were vampires in Mystic Falls.

Damon made himself stay away from Katie. If she was working at the grill he would make sure to sit at a table that wasn't in the section she was working for the night. He'd been doing a good job of giving Katie time to decide if she could forgive him, but when he walked into the grill on Halloween and saw her working, dressed as a sexy German barmaid, he couldn't resist sitting in her section. When Katie saw him she felt like switching sections with someone, but she wasn't close enough with any of her coworkers to ask. So with a sigh and a knot in her stomach she grabbed her pad and pen out of her apron and walked over to Damon. "What can I get you?"

"Shouldn't you be dressed like a leprechaun? I thought Finnegan was Irish." He asked with a charming smile.

"My father was Irish my mother was German." She answered in a flat tone. "Now what can I get you?"

"I miss you." He told her as all playfulness fell from his face.

She made a buzzer sound, "Wrong answer."

She turned to walk away, but he grabbed her hand stopping her and she turned back to him. "Bourbon on the rocks."

She simply nodded and walked away while Damon's eyes took in her black heels and thigh high fishnet stockings that stopped a few inches before her short navy blue skirt started. Instead of breaking the law and making his drink herself like she usually did, she turned his order over to the bartender.

Katie couldn't help but notice when Damon moved to the table where Mrs. Lockwood sat, dressed as a Great Gatsby character, and started flirting with her. An ugly bubble of jealousy grew in the pit of her stomach as she moved to the bar and started taking food orders. She had been trying to move on from Damon, but it was easier said than done.

After what felt like forever, Mrs. Lockwood left Damon and he came over to where Katie stood wiping down the bar that the bartenders had been neglecting all night. "I really do miss you." He told her as he sat down.

"You say after you try to flirt the pants off of a married woman." Katie quipped.

Damon rolled his eyes. "I was getting information."

"Good for you." She gave him a sarcastic smile in return then walked to the back.

"Hey, you're supposed to be on break." Her boss said from where she stood at the grill.

"I know I got tied up. I'm going now." Katie hung her apron up and went through the back exit to avoid Damon.

She met Bonnie across the street at the Halloween party. "Hey barmaid." Bonnie greeted her. "Recycling last year's costume huh?"

"Yeah. I wasn't really feeling Halloween this year." Katie shrugged and as she got closer she noticed the crystal that Damon had gotten from the founders party around her neck. "Hey, cool necklace."

"Eh it's just an ugly costume piece that came with the dress." Bonnie said with an indifferent expression and a shrug.

"I don't think that's a costume piece. Do you mind?" Katie asked with a point to the necklace.

"Sure." Bonnie lifted it off her chest and placed it in Katie's hand as she leaned in to look at it.

As soon is it touched her skin a sharp electrical wave shot through her hand. "Ah!" She pulled her hand back and looked at Bonnie with wide eyes. "What the hell was that?"

Bonnie stared at Katie with wide eyes and parted lips as she backed away from her then turned and ran. Katie pulled out her phone and pulled up Damon's number then hit call. "This is a surprise." He answered.

Katie crossed her arms over her chest and looked absent mindedly around the party. "Are you still at the bar? We need to talk."

"Nope." Hearing his voice behind her she jumped and spun around. "Damn it, Damon." She closed her phone in her fist and punched his shoulder. "You're gonna give me a heart attack one of these days."

"What do we need to talk about?" He asked with a smile as he watched her place a hand over her chest that was pushed up by a black and blue corset.

"Did you lose the crystal?" Her question made him stop and think with a frown.

"Now that you mention it, yeah. Why?" He asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Because I saw it." His eyes grew big. "Bonnie was wearing it tonight."

"Did you get it back?" He asked looking at her hands to see if she was holding it.

"I was going to try, but when I touched it the stupid thing shocked the crap out of me and she ran." She answered looking up at him.

"How did she even get it?" he asked talking more to himself than her.

"I don't know, she said it came with her costume." She answered.

His phone started ringing. "What?" Katie was sure that it was Stefan by the tone of his voice. Damon's face played out a range of emotions as he listened to Stefan then said, "Yeah I'll take care of it."

"What happened?" Katie asked as he closed the phone. He didn't answer and started to walk away but she grabbed the leather sleeve of his jacket and stopped him. "Please answer me."

"Come on." He jerked his head for her to follow him so she did. When they were out of earshot of others, walking around to the back of the school he started talking.

"Vicki tried to kill Elena. Stefan staked her in the heart." Katie placed her hand on her stomach that started churning. "You okay?"

"What's the cover up?" Damon looked at her out of the corners of his eyes. "I'm assuming you've been called to do the dirty work since you're the one that turned her in the first place." They walked around a bus and Elena, wearing a bloody nurse costume, came into sight sitting next to Vicki's body. "Elena, are you okay?" Katie asked as she walked over to her and tried to look at her shoulder, but Elena pulled away.

"You two should go. I got this." Damon told the girls.

Elena stood up, glaring at Damon. "This is all your fault."

"I know." While Damon's eyes looked at Katie apologetically his tone was just the opposite. Elena tried to shove him, but Damon stood strong, pissing Elena off all the more and she slapped him. "You done?"

"I hate you." Elena said shakily through gritted teeth.

"You need to leave, both of you." Elena just stared at him. "Elena, your wounds are bleeding…you need to leave."

"Elena?" Katie asked getting Elena's attention. "Come on, I'll drive you home."

"I can drive myself." She sighed and left.

Katie looked at Damon and he jerked his head for her to follow Elena. So she did. She got in her car and followed her to her house. When she walked up on Elena's porch Stefan was sitting on in the wicker bench next to the door. "She's talking to Jeremy."

"How is he?" she asked as she walked over and leaned against the white column across from him.

"He a mess." He answered not looking up at her.

"How are you? I know I haven't been very involved in this whole Vicki thing, but I know you were trying to help her."

"I did try to help her, but…" Stefan just shook his head.

"But it's not your job to clean up your brothers messes." She replied and movements out of the corner of her eyes made her look over to see Elena standing at the door wrapped in a maroon blanket.

Seeing that they needed to talk Katie walked over to the other end of the porch and sat down on the steps. She could hear the murmur of Elena and Stefan talking, but couldn't make out what they were saying just as she intended it to be. So when Damon walked up beside her, giving her a small smile as he walked up the steps and said, "I can do it." Katie stood up and walked over to stand next to Damon. "If this is what you want. I'll do it."

Elena looked over at Stefan and said, "It's what I want."

"What do you want him to know?" Damon asked and Katie started to catch on to what they were talking about.

"I want you to tell him that Vicki left town and she's not coming back." Elena told Damon with tears in her eyes. "That he shouldn't look for her or worry about her. He's going to miss her, but he knows it's for the best."

Damon nodded and went inside. Katie didn't agree with what they were doing, but as much as Katie saw him as such, Jeremy wasn't her brother and she knew it wasn't her call. So instead of arguing with Elena about it she walked back to her place on the steps and sat down. After a few minutes Damon came back out and said, "It's done." Katie didn't look at him until he walked past her and stuck his hand in her face. Her eyes traveled up his arm to his face. "Take a walk with me?"

Katie thought about it for a minute then against her better judgment took his hand. "You can walk me to my car." She told him letting him know it was going to be a short conversation.

Hand in hand they started walking. "I know I screwed up. I should've just come to you." he told her and she let go of his hand.

"Yeah, you should have." She told him as she pulled her car door open.

"I'm sorry." He told her and she stopped, one foot in the car.

"You think that's enough?" she asked glaring at him as she held on to the top of her car with one hand.

"No." he answered with a scoff. "Nothing will ever be enough."

"Then you understand that this conversation is over." She took her eyes off of him and got into the car, but after she shut her door she looked over to see him sitting in the passenger seat.

"It's not over because we're not over." He insisted and Katie ignored him and started her car. If he wanted to come along for the ride who was she to stop him? "I miss you Katie. I miss spending time with you and I need you." Katie scoffed and pulled into her driveway. "You're the only person I can talk to without getting looked at like I'm the biggest monster on the planet. I need you to be my moral compass."

Katie killed the car and pressed her forehead to the steering wheel with a sigh. "All I can say right now is I need more time." She picked her head up and looked at him. "Can you give me that?"

Damon leaned across the center console and pressed a kiss to her forehead. In a flash he was gone.

* * *

The next morning Katie woke up with a stretch, pausing when her fist touched cold flesh. As her eyes traveled to her fist they landed on Damon's smiling face. "Damn it Damon!" she swore and punched him in the chest.

"Hi to you too." He smiled as she got out of the bed and walked around to face him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked.

"I told you, I miss you." he answered as if it were the obvious one.

"And I told you I need more time." She said realizing she was standing in front of him in nothing but a tank top and black lace panties.

"I decided that you've had enough time." He said as he watched her grab a robe off of the back of her bedroom door and put it on. "No, no, don't cover up on my behalf." His smirk made her roll her eyes as she tied the robe.

"Don't you think that's for me to say?" she asked crossing her arms over her chest uncomfortably.

"Nope." He said popping the p at the end of the word. "You miss me too or you wouldn't have been so catty about me flirting with Mrs. Lockwood." He said as he reached behind his head and grabbed the first thing that his hand landed on. "What is this?" he asked as he started to open the picture album in his hands. Katie jumped and snatched the book out of his hands. "What? I thought you said I could snoop through anything in this room except your journal." He said with a displeased look as he held his hands out to the side.

"No picture albums." She told him with a glare as she set the book down on her desk. "I'll ask again. Why are you here?"

"Because you miss me and you know it." he said as he got up and grabbed her cell phone off of her desk and started scrolling through her contacts. When he got to his that was still labeled "The Hotter Salvatore Brother" he turned the phone for her to see. "Otherwise you would've changed this." He said with a nod to the screen.

"Fine, you're right. Is that what you want to hear? I was jealous when I saw you flirting with Mrs. Lockwood. I miss waking up to you playing with my hair. I miss you showering me with kisses and playing keep away with my stuff, but none of that changes anything. I can't trust you and you will never stop hurting people."

She thought he was going to kiss her as he walked over, staring her down as he did, but instead he grabbed her face, placed his forehead on hers and closed his eyes. "What if we make a deal?"

"Damon…" she whined.

"Hear me out." He let go of her and opened his eyes. "If I promise to stop feeding on and killing humans will you give me a second chance and do me one tiny favor?"

"Depends, what's the favor? If it's getting you the crystal back I can't. I tried." She said as she moved around him to her bed and sat down.

"I need you to throw a party tonight." He said with a look that told her he knew how out of her field of expertise the request was.

"Why?" she drawled suspiciously.

"It's Stefan's birthday." He answered.

"Nope, I'm not buying it. You hate your brother. What's the other reason?" she asked as he walked over and sat down next to her.

"You know how I told you there was a council here back in the day?" he asked and she hummed a yes as they both scooted back to lean against the wall. "They still exist and they know that vampires are in mystic falls again."

"So how does throwing a party come into play?" she asked with a frown.

"There's another vampire in town. If you throw a party they will come and I will help the council kill them. Therefore…" he made a motion with his hands for her to finish the sentence.

"Therefore taking you off of the suspects list." She finished with a sigh.

"So do we have a deal?" he asked as he looked across his shoulder at her.

She moved to sit on her knees facing him so that she didn't have to crane her neck to look at him. "You promise not to kill anyone other than this vampire?" she asked and he hummed a positive answer. "And you're not going to feed on anyone?" he hummed again. "Then we have a deal." With a smile he leaned into her and pressed his lips to her in a kiss that quickly turned passionate. But as he started to lay her back she pushed him back and stood up.

"What? I was just sealing the deal." He defended with a smirk and he stood up and tried to kiss her again.

"You're such an asshole." She laughed and shoved him, he stumbled back just to humor her.

"Yeah, but you like me anyway." He said cockily.

"Yeah, whatever. Get out of here I have a party to plan." She told him as she jerked her head to the door.

"Thank you." he said as he grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it.

"You're welcome now go." She told him then watched him leave.

After he was gone Katie called the best party planner she knew, Caroline. She was resistant at first, but when Katie pointed out how boring the town had been since Vicki's disappearance and needed a pick me up, Caroline was all in.

Since the party was being thrown at the grill Katie got called in to work for it. She was taking food orders at the bar when Damon came in and ordered a drink. "You got Caroline to help with this huh?" he asked as Katie made him a glass of bourbon and set it in front of him.

"If by help you mean I tossed out the idea of throwing a party and she ran with it, then yes." She said with a smart ass smile.

Damon just smiled as Katie got back to work and let him enjoy his drink. An hour later she was serving a booth when a tall beautiful blond she had never seen before walked in and Damon greeted her. Katie wasn't sure but it looked like she blew him off. Not long after Stefan showed up and started dancing with the blond.

After seeing Elena talking to the blond Katie caught a break for two seconds and headed over to her friend. "So who's the blond?" Katie asked as she crossed her arms over the table that Elena was standing at.

"Her name is Lexi. She's a friend of Stefan's." Elena said not looking away from where Stefan stood playing pool with her.

"Is she a you-know-what?" she asked.

"Yep apparently her and Stefan have been best friends for, like, ever." Elena said making Katie remember Damon's plan for tonight.

"I gotta get back to work." Katie said as she started looking around for Damon, spotting him sitting at the bar.

With flared nostrils she headed over to him, grabbed his drink from his hand and downed what little was left in it. "Whoa, what was that about?" Damon asked looking down at his now empty glass.

"Is it Lexi?" Katie asked, ignoring his question.

"Is what Lexi?" he played dumb.

"Don't play stupid. You know what I'm talking about." She told him as she refilled his glass.

"Yes, okay." He answered as he took a drink.

"She's Stefan's best friend, Damon. Please don't do this." She whispered.

"Too late. The plan's already in motion." He told her before Lexi walked over and slid him some shots.

Katie scoffed at him and got back to work. Not long after Damon and Lexi started talking, Sheriff Forbs came in and stabbed Lexi with a syringe and drug her away. Not thirty minutes later the bar was closed and everyone was asked to leave.

Katie had just gotten out of the shower when she heard a thump on the roof. So she went to her room to find Damon sitting on her bed with blood on his shirt. "Oh my god what happened?" she asked running over to him, holding her towel around herself with one hand, afraid that the council had seen through his plan and attacked him.

"Stefan staked me." He replied and Katie scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"You deserved it." she said as she went to her dresser and grabbed some panties and a bra.

"I can't say I disagree with you." he huffed and lifted his shirt revealing a bloody circle where the stake had gone through.

"Is this what we are…what we're always going to be? You do and say whatever it takes to get me to do your dirty work?" she asked as she twirled her finger telling him to turn around. He rolled his eyes but stood up and turned his back.

Just to be mean she tossed the towel on the bed, purposely pointing out that she was completely nude. "It's not what I want it to be." He said with a glance behind him at the same time Katie walked over to her closet and pulled out an oversized short sleeved shirt.

"Then what do you want us to be because I can't be whatever we are right now." She said as she pulled the dark grey shirt over her head. "Half truths are still lies."

"At first I just wanted us to be friends, but then you made me that offer and things got messy." Katie just glared at him with her arms crossed over her chest. "I got to know you and I started wanting more than just your friendship and your blood."

"You got to know me?" she asked walking around him to pull the curtains closed. "What do you know about me, Damon?"

"I know that you will do anything to protect the people you care about." He started.

"A fact that you have exploited." She pointed out with flared nostrils.

"I know that you hate chocolate, which is crazy by the way." He told her with an exaggerated expression. "I know you actually like studying. You take a tablespoon of creamer and no sugar in your coffee. You pick at your cuticles when you're nervous. You look _stunning_ in blue. You have the most soothing snore I have ever heard and you talk in your sleep sometimes. You-"

"Okay I get it." she snapped cutting him off. "So what more do you want from me?"

He walked over to her and grabbed her hips, pulling her into him as he pressed her forehead to hers. "I think you know and I'm not talking about sex."

"How am I supposed to give that to you when yours belongs to someone else?" she asked as her eyes slipped closed.

"It is possible to love two people you know." He whispered. "Do you forgive me for tonight?" he asked, changing the subject.

She pushed him back and moved to her desk chair, sitting in it backwards. "Every cell in my brain is screaming at me to say no, I can't trust you, but…yes, I do forgive you." He walked over and leaned down, placing a light kiss on her lips. After a few seconds she pushed him back. "You can't do that."

"Please…" he drew out the word.

"No." she shook her head and he flopped back onto her bed. "Not until you prove to me that I can trust you."

"Okay." He told her with a nod as he sat up.

"Really?" She asked with a skeptical glare.

"Really. I'll do what ever it takes to get my fun girlfriend back." He told her as he tucked a wavy lock of hair behind her ear.

"All it takes is for you to stop killing people. Stop feeding on people and stop mentally, physically and emotionally hurting everyone around you." she told him then sat down on her bed. "You have to earn my trust. I was stupid to just hand it over to you in the first place."

"Okay." He said as he stood up and grabbed her hand, pulling her up to stand in front of him. "I'll earn your trust then." He kissed her on the forehead then opened her bedroom window, walked out onto the roof and stood at the edge.

"You know you can use the front door right?" Katie asked and he looked over his shoulder at her with a smirk.

"Where's the fun in that?" his smiled a toothy smile then said, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Damon." She watched him turned away from her then jump.

* * *

During lunch Katie sat with Elena and Bonnie eating a salad talking about how Bonnie hasn't been sleeping well because she keeps having dreams about her ancestor, Emily.

"Have you tried just not wearing the necklace when you sleep?" Katie asked and Bonnie nodded.

"It ends up back on my neck every time." Bonnie said looking freaked.

"Weird." Katie said cocking her head to the side.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Bonnie asked.

"Yep." Katie answered not even having to think about it.

"Two weeks ago I'd say no, but now…" Elena answered with a sigh.

"I think I'm being haunted." Bonnie admitted in a rush.

"I don't get it, why Emily?" Elena asked.

"Grams said she was a powerful witch back in the civil war days and that this medallion was hers…a witch's talisman." Bonnie explained.

"So maybe Emily needs to tell you something and she's just being cryptic about it." Katie asked and Bonnie shrugged.

"What does Grams say about it?" Elena asked ignoring Katie.

"I can't call her. She's going tell me to embrace it. I don't want to embrace it. I want it to stop." Bonnie complained before the bell rang.

She was leaving the building headed to her car when she saw Damon blocking Bonnie's way to her car. "Damon?" Katie asked as she walked over.

"Did you tell him about Emily?" Bonnie asked her with wide eyes.

"No, I haven't spoken to him in, like, two week." Katie answered. "Besides you swore me to secrecy remember?"

"Look, the next time Emily comes out to play do me a favor and remind her that a deal's a deal." He said as he stepped back and opened Bonnie's car door for her. Bonnie got in and he shut it.

"What was that about?" Katie asked as she started walking to her car with Damon beside her.

"You couldn't get the crystal back so I was just trying to get her to give it back myself." He answered as if it were no big deal.

"Why did she look scared?" she asked as she stopped at her car and unlocked the door.

"Because I knew about how Emily's been haunting her." he answered as he reached down and opened the door for her.

"How do you know about Emily?" Katie asked resting her arm on the roof of her car.

"Who do you think sealed Katherine into the tomb?" he asked. "Emily Bennett was Katherine's hand maiden."

Katie sighed shook her head. "Okay one of these days you are going to sit down and you are going to tell me absolutely everything about your past here in Mystic Falls. Including pictures if you have any." She told him with a smile. "I'm kind of interested to see what you looked like back then."

"Oh I was handsome." He said with a cocky smile.

"I'll believe it when I see it." she told him as she slid into her car then pointed at him. "Stop scaring my friends and I'll see what I can do about getting the necklace back." Damon was about to say something back when Katie's phone started ringing. "It's Elena, I'll see you later." She told him and he shut the door as she pressed talk and put the phone to her ear. "Hey, what's up?"

"Do you have to work tonight?" Elena asked.

"Nope." Katie answered.

"Well Damon scared the crap out of Bonnie and she's dealing with this whole Emily thing so we're having a sleep over. You, Me, Bonnie and Caroline at my place." Elena told her.

"Okay. I have to go home and do a few things, but I'll be over as soon as I can." She said then hung up.

When Katie made it to Elena's her and Stefan were standing on the porch talking. "Hey, do you know what Damon wants with Bonnie's necklace?" Stefan asked her as she walked up the steps.

"All I know is he stole it from the Lockwood's during the founder's party and he wants it back." Katie said with a shrug the headed inside.

Not long after Elena came inside the girls stood around the island in the kitchen in awkward silence waiting for Caroline to get there with the food. Elena finally asked, "So you knew that Damon wanted Bonnie's necklace?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think he would try to scare her into giving it to him." Katie answered.

"So you haven't been trying to get me to take it off just so Damon could get it?" Bonnie asked.

"No I told you to stop wearing it because of the nightmares it was giving you." Katie answered then realized that Bonnie was no longer wearing the crystal. "Wait, where is it?"

"I threw it into a field." Bonnie said expecting some kind of reaction.

"You threw what in a field?" Caroline asked as she walked in with a bag of food in her hands.

"Bonnie threw away that ugly necklace she's been wearing." Elena filled her in.

"Oh, okay." Caroline set the bag down on the counter and Elena and Katie started taking out the food. "So are we going to talk about some stupid necklace all night or are we going to do manicures?" Caroline asked. "Who brought their kit?"

"Mine's in my bag." Bonnie told her.

"So Elena," Caroline started as she headed over to Bonnie's bag that was on the dining table, "how long do you think this breakup with Stefan's gonna last? Is it a permanent thing?"

"I don't know Caroline." Elena sighed while munching on a French fry.

"I thought you said you threw this away." Caroline said and everyone looked to see her holding up the necklace.

"I did." Bonnie said with wide eyes as Caroline walked over and set it down on the table.

"It's true I watched her throw it into the field." Elena defended.

"I believe you, but I think we need to face the fact that Emily wants you to keep it." Katie said.

"Who's Emily?" Caroline asked.

"The ghost." Bonnie answered.

"Oh, so the ghost has a name now?" Caroline mocked in her usual style.

"Caroline, please." Elena told her while holding a hand up.

"I wonder why she won't leave me alone?" Bonnie asked no one in particular.

"Okay what is going on?" Caroline asked getting mad at them. "Why am I not a part of this conversation? You guys do this to me all the time."

"That's not true." Elena started.

"Yes, it is." "It kind of is." Bonnie and Katie spoke at the same time.

"I can't talk to you, Caroline. You don't listen." Bonnie continued.

"That's not true." Caroline argued with a sway of her head.

Bonnie sighed and said, "I'm a witch."

"And don't we all know it." Caroline replied snarkily.

"See? That's what I'm talking about." Bonnie said. "I'm trying to tell you something. You don't ever hear it!" Bonnie yelled and walked off.

"I listen. When do I not listen?" Caroline asked Elena and Katie.

"I'm going to let you handle this one." Katie sighed and followed after Bonnie. She found her in the living room sulking. "So you're admitting it now?" she asked as she sat down next to her. "When did I miss that?"

"I know you've always believed. I guess the rest of us just needed more convincing." She said with a smile. "About a month ago maybe. Grams started teaching me some stuff. Here, watch." She grabbed a piece of paper that was sitting on the kitchen table and set it on the couch between them. She placed her hand over it and wiggled her fingers as she lifted her hand, the paper followed.

"Bonnie that's awesome." Katie laughed as Bonnie set the paper down and smiled at Katie proudly. Katie wanted to ask more questions, but Caroline walked in and gave her a small smile. "I'll give you two a minute." She got up and headed to the kitchen where she knew Elena was.

After a few minutes they heard Caroline yell, "You guys can come in now we're done." So Katie and Elena headed into the living room and plopped down on the couch with their friends. "Well there is just way too much drama in this room." Caroline said as she looked around the room. "What do you guys want to do?" she didn't give anyone a chance to answer before she gasped and sat up on the couch. "I have an idea. Why don't we have a séance?"

"I was going to say let's watch The Notebook but that works I guess." Katie sighed sarcastically and pushed herself off of the couch.

"I don't think that's a good idea." Bonnie said as Caroline walked around the couch and started grabbing some candles.

"Come on, let's summon some spirits. This Emily chick has some serious explaining to do." Caroline argued and headed up to Elena's room with the candles.

As they set out the candles and sat down in a circle in the middle of Elena's room Katie finally spoke up. "I'm no witch but I have a bad feeling about this."

"Shush." Caroline snapped as they all joined hands. "Be quiet and concentrate." Katie felt like she was back at cheer camp all over again. Caroline the ring leader back at it again. "Ok, close your eyes." Katie rolled her eyes as she closed them. "Take a deep breath." All four girls took in a deep breath and let it out. "Bonnie, call to her."

"Emily, you there?" Bonnie asked not really playing into the whole scene Caroline had set.

"Really? Emily. You there? That's all you got?" Caroline complained and Katie laughed. "Come on."

"Fine, jeez." Bonnie said. "Emily, I call on you. I know you have a message. I'm here to listen."

After a few seconds the flames on the candles spiked. "Holy, sh-" Katie gasped as they all let go of each others hands and leaned away from the candles.

"Did that just…" Elena asked.

"Yeah that just happened." Caroline answered.

"I told you guys I had a bad feeling." Katie said as a chill took over the air making Caroline shiver.

"It's just the air conditioning." Bonnie said trying to pretend that it wasn't happening. But the candle flames spike again proving that it wasn't just the air conditioning.

"Ask her to show you a sign." Caroline told Bonnie who shook her head. "Ask her." Bonnie refused so Caroline asked, "Emily, if you're among us, show us another sign."

After a few second with nothing happening Bonnie said, "See it's not working." As soon as they started to relax the window behind Bonnie flew open. "No, I can't I'm done." She threw the necklace to the floor next to the candles as they blew out. "The light's get the lights." Bonnie cried, freaking out so Elena got up and ran to the light switch.

As soon as they flicked back on Katie turned her eyes to Bonnie. "Are you okay?'

"Katie the necklace is gone." Bonnie said pointing to the floor. "Please tell me you took it."

"No, I promise you I didn't." Katie answered.

"Come on Katie just give it back." Caroline pushed.

"I swear I didn't take the stupid crystal." Katie argued getting mad that they didn't believe her.

Katie jumped when she saw something move outside in the hallway, so did Elena. "Did you see that?" Katie asked her.

"What, what happened?" Caroline asked turning to the door.

"Nothing." Elena answered as she walked over to the door. "Jeremy, are you home?" she called but didn't get a response.

"Um, guys…" Bonnie said getting their attention as she walked into Elena's bathroom.

The three girls watched her walk into the bathroom and pick up the crystal. As soon as she did the bathroom door slammed shut and Bonnie started screaming. The lights started flashing and while Caroline and Elena beat on the bathroom door in Elena's room Katie ran to the hallway and started trying to open that door.

Just as fast as it all started the lights stopped flashing, Bonnie stopped screaming and the doors unlocked themselves. Katie opened the hall door while Caroline and Elena opened the other door. "Bonnie?" Katie asked as her eyes adjusted to the light and she saw Bonnie standing in the middle of the bathroom with her face in her hands.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Elena asked and Bonnie uncovered her face.

"I'm fine." Bonnie said and Katie immediately noticed something was off about the way Bonnie was talking.

"Unbelievable." Caroline scoffed. "You were totally faking it."

"Caroline, come on." Elena sighed.

"No, you scared the hell out of me!" Caroline yelled then walked off.

Katie walked around Bonnie to stand next to Elena. "Hey, really, are you okay?" She asked noticing the way Bonnie was standing with her hand clasped together in front of her.

"I'm fine. Everything fine." She answered as she walked by the two girls and out of Elena's room.

Elena and Katie shared a look. "I can't believe I fell for it." Caroline scoffed following Bonnie out of the room.

"I must go." Bonnie said as she headed out into the hallway and to the stairs.

"If she's leaving I'm leaving." Caroline said angrily.

"You guys can't leave." Elena tried.

"Oh, I can." Caroline said to Elena as Katie watched Bonnie walking down the stairs.

"Bonnie?" Katie called trying to get her attention.

Bonnie just turned to them and said, "Thank you for having me. I'll take it from here."

"Where are you going?" Elena asked while Katie was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with Bonnie.

"Back to where it all began." Bonnie answered then started walking down the stairs faster.

"Emily?" Katie asked and Bonnie stopped and turned to her as Katie started down the stairs.

"I won't let him have it. It must be destroyed." She turned from Katie and ran to the door, but before Katie got to it Emily slammed it.

As she was trying to pull it open Caroline and Elena came up behind her. Katie let go of the door and Elena took over trying to open it while Katie grabbed her phone and called Damon. "Well this is a surprise." He answered in his usual cocky manner.

"Emily is possessing Bonnie." Katie said in a huff, adrenaline pumping through her veins.

"What?" Damon asked confused.

"She said some hing like I won't let him have it. It must be destroyed and she left." Katie answered to the best of her ability.

"Did she say where she was going?" Damon asked.

"She said something about going back to where it all began." She answered before it clicked. "The church, the old Fell church. That's where she's been taking Bonnie in her dreams."

"Stay there where it's safe. I'll take care of it." he told her before he hung up. A few seconds after she hung up with Damon Elena hung up her phone and started out the door.

"Where are you going?" Katie asked running after her.

"The church, Bonnie needs us." Elena answered as she pulled open the door of her suv and Katie followed. "So you and Damon are talking again?" Elena asked as she sped down the empty roads to the church.

"No I just didn't know who else to call." Katie said with a sigh.

When they got to the church it was easy to spot where they were by the fire that was set in the woods. The two girls ran over just as Emily tossed the crystal into the air sending sparks through the air. When the fire burned out Katie's eyes finally found Damon and saw the Veins popping under his eyes as he glared at Bonnie. "Damon no!" Katie screamed at tried to run to him, but she didn't get to him before he sank his teeth into Bonnie's neck. Stefan whooshed over and pulled Damon off of Bonnie. Katie ran over and fell to her knees beside her friend, pressing two fingertips just below her jaw line. "Her pulse is there, but it's weak." Katie told Stefan who kneeled down next to her. "Will you help her?"

"Yeah." He answered then bit his wrist. Seeing that Bonnie was going to be okay Katie stood up and started to walk over to Damon. "Katie don't." Stefan said and she turned back giving him a questioning look. "Not just yet. Give him a minute." Katie nodded and stayed with Elena and Bonnie as her neck healed and they helped her to the car. "I'll be back." Stefan told Elena as the girls stood with Bonnie in front of Elena's suv.

A few minutes later Stefan came back and jerked his head for Katie to go talk to Damon. "I'll be right back." she told her friends before she headed to the direction Stefan had jerked his head to. She found Damon sitting on the stone remains of the church. "So," she started as she sat down next to him and he just kept staring off into space, his arms draped loosely over his knees, "why did Emily feel the need to destroy the crystal?"

"There are twenty-seven other vampires in the tomb with her, she couldn't risk letting them out too." He answered emotionlessly.

"And there's no other way to open it?" she asked and he shook his head.

"I am so, so sorry." She said craning her neck to try to get his attention.

"Are you really though?" he asked finally looking at her.

"I'm not going to lie, I'm jealous as hell of Katherine…but yeah I am." She said looking away from him to the ground. "It hurts to see you hurting."

"Well, you won't have to see me hurting much longer. I'm leaving town." He said turning to look off into the distance again.

"What? No." Katie asked with wide eyes.

"Yes, Katie. I have no reason to stay." He answered numbly.

Katie got up and straddled him, sitting in his lap. "You have me." She grabbed his face in her hands and made him look at her.

"I've made your life a living hell." He answered with wet eyes, but no tears were falling.

"You have made my life better." She stated as she brushed her thumbs over his cheekbones. "A little more complicated…but better. Thanks to you I know how to do this." Katie pressed a kiss to his lips and for the first two seconds she wondered if he was going to kiss her back, but then his arms snaked around her waist and pulled her tighter to him as he started kissing her back.

After a minute he leaned forward laying her back on the grass as he started kissing her neck. He kissed her earlobe and said, "Goodbye, Katie." And in a whoosh he was gone.

With tears slipping down her cheeks she went back to where the car was to find that they were already gone. So she walked to Elena's and when she knocked on her door Aunt Jenna answered. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked as she saw her red eyes.

"I just really need to talk to Elena." She said, hugging herself like a little kid.

"Of course, her and Bonnie are upstairs." She said as she stepped out of the way and let Katie in.

When she walked into Elena's room both girls had tears streaming down their faces. When they saw Katie they opened their arms up for her to join them. A new wave of tears took over as she embraced her friends. They had a heart to heart that night. Katie told Bonnie about her grandfather and how Damon helped her and everything in between.


	8. Chapter 8

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 8**

The next morning Katie dragged herself from bed and to school. She had to keep reminding herself that Damon was just a guy and she couldn't put her life on hold because of him. Damon was leaving and the changes he had made to her life were staying. So why should she beat herself up about it? As soon as the final bell rang Katie's phone started vibrating in her pocket. When she saw the name The Hotter Salvatore Brother on the screen she almost didn't answer it, but as always she went against her better judgment and did. "I thought you already told me goodbye." She answered.

"I know what I said, but I'm not going anywhere for now. There's another vampire in town." He informed her. "I need you to help me find it."

"Why me?" she asked as she headed to her car and spotted Elena and Stefan talking. He was probably telling her the same thing Damon was telling Katie, but without asking for help.

"Because," he said then made an aggravated sound, "Meet me at your house and I'll explain everything, okay?"

"Yeah sure." She sighed and closed her car door. She headed home. Damon was waiting on her front porch and met her at her car as she pulled into the driveway. "So how do you know there's another vampire in town?" Katie asked as Damon opened her car door and she stepped out onto the cement driveway.

"Because Sheriff Forbs came by this morning and said they found another body drained of blood. Despite what Stefan thinks, I didn't do it." He said as he shut her car door and they headed for the house.

"So how am I supposed to help you find it?" she asked as she unlocked her front door and they walked inside.

"With this." He said as he pulled a pocket watch out of his back pocket.

"A pocket watch?" she asked as she watched him open the gold circle watch and flip it around.

"It's a compass that points to vampires." He said as set it in her hand, pressed the button on the link where a chain could be put and the pointer started spinning until it pointed at Damon and clicked into place. When he moved behind her it started spinning again until it found him and click into place again. "See simple."

"So because you would interfere with the vamp signal I have to be the one to use this and figure out where the vampire you're looking for is?" she asked piecing things together.

'Yep." He answered. "And it's daylight so nine judges out of ten suggests that the vampire is somewhere inside and not able to hurt you if you're in the daylight so…" he said as he walked around her and flopped down on her couch, propping his feet up on the table. "Get to lookin'."

"Okay one, I'm not even sure I want to help you after you ditched me at the church. I had to walk home just so you know. Two, what do I get out of this? And three, get your dirty feet off the coffee table."

"What do you want to get out of this?" he asked as he took his feet down off the table.

Katie thought about it for a second. "Make me an offer I can't refuse." She challenged.

"Hmm, I know sex isn't going to work…" he said as he stood up and started pacing around her in a circle. "Or is it?"

"It isn't." she confirmed. He hummed still walking around her, looking her up and down as he thought about what he could offer her. "Seriously, you can't think of one thing you can give me in return for helping you?"

"Uninterrupted time with me at my place." He offered and she made a motion for him to sweeten the deal. "And I'm sorry for leaving you alone at the church." She made the hand motion again. "Dinner and a movie?" he asked not knowing what else he could throw in to make the deal better.

"Bump me back up to girlfriend status and we have a deal." She said as she stuck her hand out and raised a challenging eyebrow.

He took her hand and shook it twice before he pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around her as he kissed her. "Deal. Now get to it before you lose the light." He let go of her and she rolled her eyes.

After two and a half hours of driving around and watching the compass it finally clicked into place and she followed it to an abandoned warehouse. So she closed it and called Damon. "I found it. I'm sending you the address now."

"I'm on my way." He told her and she could hear wind over the phone.

"Are you…whooshing, all the way here?" she asked before he appeared outside her car.

"Yep." He answered with a smile then they both hung up the phone.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to that." She said as she opened her door and hopped out, shutting it behind her.

"Have I thanked you for this?" he asked as he grabbed her hips and pulled her into him.

"No, but you're welcome." She said with a small smile. "Can I go to career night now?" she asked as she placed her hands on his chest and gave him a light push.

"What _are_ you planning on doing with your future?" he asked curiously. "You work so hard to be at the top of your class…it must be something good like a doctor or…a dentist." He asked with a sarcastic eye roll.

"I'll let you know after I go to career night." She told him and he finally let go of her hips.

"Okay, go. Have fun." He told her as he opened her door for her and shut it behind her.

She'd been at the career fair for a few hours and was looking at the booth handing out pamphlets on law degrees when she got a call from Damon. "It's Logan Fell."

"What?" Katie asked as she headed outside where it was quieter.

"Logan Fell is the vampire and he's there, at career night." Damon told her. "I'm on my way, but until I get there stay away from him." He warned. "Find Elena and Stefan…stay with them."

"Okay." she told him and he hung up. Katie was leaning in the corner of the building taking a few calming breaths when she saw Mayor Lockwood pushing Jeremy and Tyler out the door she had come through, completely overlooking her.

Katie stood back watching Mayor Lockwood talking to the boys. Mr. Saltzman, the new history teacher walked out, not missing her like the Mayor did and walked over to them as the Mayor shoved Tyler. "Whoa. What's goin' on out here?" Mr. Saltzman asked.

"I can answer that question." Katie spoke up as she walked over to stand next to her teacher who gave her a questioning look. "He's bullying them." She answered then looked at the Mayor. "Just like he and my grandpa used to do to me every time they got drunk together. They called it preparing me for the real world. Isn't that right Mayor Lockwood?" Katie asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"What?" Tyler asked looking past his father to Katie who let her eyes slip to the concrete.

"Okay I think we all need to go back inside." Mr. Saltzman spoke up placing a hand on Katie's back to usher her back inside.

"Na, we're good here. You two go back inside." The mayor said turning back to the boys.

"I don't want to go back inside." Mr. Saltzman spoke up taking a step closer to the mayor. "What I want is _your_ answer to my question." He pointed at the mayor.

"Who do you think you're talking to?" the mayor asked walking a little closer to Mr. Saltzman. "Do I look like a student?"

"No, you look like a full-grown alpha-male douche bag." Mr. Saltzman replied

"Yeah…I'm gonna relocate." Katie drawled as she moved to stand next to Tyler anticipating a fist fight between the two men.

"_You_ don't talk to me like that." The mayor said walking even closer to the teacher. "I could have your job like this." He snapped his fingers.

Mr. Saltzman laughed. "You do that. Then it'll be me and you out here in this parking lot working things out." He broadened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest. "You cool with that?"

"You just mark yourself." The Mayor threatened.

"Yeah, ok" Mr. Saltzman whispered.

The mayor glared at Tyler before they walked off together. When they were gone Katie started to walk off, but Mr. Saltzman grabbed the back of her jacket as she passed him stopping her. She looked across her shoulder at him to see him looking at Jeremy. "Are you okay?" Jeremy nodded and walked off leaving her alone with her teacher who let go of her jacket and turned to her. "Was any of that true or were you just stoking the flames?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Katie sighed and walked over the lean against the railing where Tyler and Jeremy had been standing. "It was all true." She admitted as she crossed her arms over her chest uncomfortably. "I thought Tyler should know that he's not the only one who's been bullied, by his father."

"And what you said about your grandfather…" he prompted.

"He used to, but…he stopped thanks to a close friend of mine." She answered with a small smile. "Thanks for the concern though." Katie said as she pushed herself off of the rails and headed for the door.

"Any time." He told her with a small, close lipped smile and a nod as he opened the door and jerked his head to inside.

She found Elena in the hallway. "Hey, where's Stefan?" she asked Elena with a frown. "And have you seen Logan Fell?"

"What do you know about Logan?" Elena asked looking confused.

"I know that he's a you-know-what and that he was here." Katie answered earning a questioning look. "Damon called me, wanted me to stay safe." she said with a shrug as if it were no big deal.

"Last we heard he was giving Caroline a ride home. Stefan went after him." She told her with a shrug. "Stefan told me to stay here, you probably should too." She told her as they looked around at all the people in the hallway. "So you're talking to Damon again?"

"He called. I answered." Katie said with a shrug.

"I swear you're like a fish on a hook and he just keeps reeling you in." Elena sighed moving to lean again a locker.

"And that's different than you and Stefan how?" Katie asked Elena who just stared at her as if she was out of line. "I need some air."

She was sitting on a picnic table outside the school, not caring if Logan Fell found her when Tyler walked over and sat down next to her. "Is it true?" he asked and Katie looked across her shoulder at him. "What you said about my dad."

Katie started picking at her cuticles as she nodded. "Yeah, it's true." She looked back down at her hands.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" he asked leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees.

"Probably the same reasons you haven't said anything to anyone." She answered quietly. "And because I didn't know he did it to you too." She answered leaning forward, mimicking his position. "I thought it was just some sick game he and my grandpa played with they got drunk."

"So your grandpa-?" he asked looking over at her and how she was picking at her nails.

"Yeah." She answered with a nod, not letting him finish the sentence.

"That sucks." He said not knowing what else to say and things fell awkwardly silent.

"You came here with your dad right?" Katie asked looking around to see that the Mayor's car was no where in sight. Tyler hummed a yes as he looked around too. "Do you need a ride home?"

"I was gonna ask Matt for a ride, but it looks like he's already left." He said with a sigh.

"Then it's settled. You're riding with me." She slid off of the table and looked at him to see him giving her an '_are you serious'_ look. "Do you have any other way of getting home tonight?" she asked and he shook his head no. "Then come on." She told him as she jerked her head toward her car.

He hesitantly followed her to her car and climbed inside. "You know I don't think we've had a conversation this long since…" he trailed off when he remembered the last time they had really talked.

"Since eighth grade. Seven minutes in heaven?" she asked with a smirk at the memory.

"Yeah." He laughed a little.

"You know up until about three weeks ago Elena still believed that you were my first kiss?" she asked with a smile over at him before she turned her eyes back to the road.

"Yeah, no one I know really believed that we made out." He admitted as he shifted in his seat.

"I'm going to pretend not to be offended by that." She said as she pointed her finger at him.

"No offense, but you aren't exactly the make out in the closet with a guy type." He replied honestly getting no response from her. "Who _was_ your first kiss?" he asked being nosy just to try to get a reaction from her.

"Yeah I'm not answering that question unless you do." She said with a shake of her head.

"Vicki Donovan." He answered without missing a beat.

"Damn, I was banking on the fact that you wouldn't answer." She sighed as she turned onto his street.

"Come on, I answered now it's your turn." He said challengingly.

"This is what I get for bringing up the past." She sighed as she pulled into his driveway. "Oh look we're here you can get out now." She prompted overly cheerfully as she pulled the car to a stop.

"Nice try but I'm not getting out until you answer the question." he said with a playful smirk.

"Then we're gonna be here all night." She told him stubbornly.

"You _have had _a first kiss haven't you?" He asked when she still didn't answer. "Because if you haven't I'll gladly change that."

"Is that your douchy jock way of hitting on me?" She asked with a stunned smile and reddening cheeks.

"Maybe. Is it working?" He asked cockily.

"A few months ago I probably would've said yes, but I'm seeing someone." She answered feeling kind of sorry for turning him down. "And to be completely honest I'm kind of surprised you just hit on me."

"Why are you so surprised?" He asked with a smile.

"Well because you're...you." she answered getting a _'what are you talking about?'_ look from him "You're the hot football player that all the girls want." She said being her usual, blatantly honest self.

"And you're you. The hot, geeky, cheerleader that all the guys want, but are too intimidated to approach." He said as if his statement was as obvious as hers. "What's your point?"

"I'm...um...what?" Katie blinked at him in confusion. But he didn't get the chance to answer because someone knocked on the passenger side window and he rolled it down revealing his mom. "Hi, Mrs. Lockwood." Katie greeted.

Mrs. Lockwood just ignored her and smiled at her son. "Tyler, sweetie, don't you think it's time you come inside?" She asked her tone sticky sweet.

"Yes ma'am." He mumbled as he looked at Katie and rolled his eyes as he took off his seat belt then got out of the car. She smiled at his reaction to his bitch of a mother.

"I see you found more trash to drag up to the house." Mrs. Lockwood's words floated in through the still rolled down window.

Katie's nostrils flailed as she put her car in drive and left the driveway as calmly as she could. No matter how bad she wanted to do a burnout on the pretty white concrete driveway she didn't do it for fear of Tyler getting in trouble.

She was almost home when she got a text from Damon asking her to meet him at the boarding house. On her way she looked down and reached for her phone in the passenger seat. When she looked back up at the road she saw a car swerve to miss someone standing in the road. But the car still hit the person then started flipping across the road.

Katie slammed on her breaks, stopping a few feet from the car. Only thinking about the people involved in the accident, Katie put her car in park and hopped out. The over turned car was closer to her than the person who got hit so she ran to the driver to see that it was Elena. "Elena? Are you okay?" Katie asked, but Elena pointed behind Katie to the person she had hit. "Oh, shit." Katie whispered when she saw that the person was popping their broken limbs back into place and standing up.

"Run." Elena croaked, but Katie didn't have the chance to even think before the vampire whooshed over and sank its teeth into Katie's neck. She screamed right before her world faded to pitch black.

* * *

Music pulled Katie from her slumber and as she opened her eyes she realized she was in Damon's car. "Damon?" Katie asked. An ache in her neck made her reach up to message it only for her hand to land on a bandage. "Did you bite me?"

"No." he answered with a glance over at her as she sat up and adjusted herself in the seat. "But whoever did is a lucky man."

"What?" Katie asked, confused she looked around, her eyes landing on Elena in the back seat. "What happened?"

"Elena wrecked her car. You drove up on the accident on the way to see me. A vampire fed on you. He would've killed you if I hadn't came by and stopped him." He explained.

"Wait, I'm confused. If you were at the boarding house how did you find us?" Katie asked placing her hand on her neck, feeling the oval wound beneath the bandage.

"I was on my way to the boarding house. I was supposed to meet up with Logan at the old Fell church, but Sheriff Forbs called and said that someone killed him." He explained and looked across his shoulder at her to see her looking at him with furrowed brows. "Before you ask I was meeting with Logan because he said that there's another way to open the tomb. I was going to kill him after I got the information I needed from him."

"Okay I still have questions." She said turning sideways in the seat to look at him without hurting her neck. "One, where are we going? Two, is Caroline okay? Three do you really believe that there's another way to get into that tomb? And four, is Elena okay?" she asked looking back at her friend.

"Caroline is fine she just has a minor concussion. Stefan brought her to her house after we found Logan. Elena is okay, just a little beaten up." He answered then looked over his shoulder at her asleep in the back seat. "To answer your other two questions I don't know if there really is another way to open that tomb, but that's what we're going to figure out. I know a witch named Bree. She told me how to open the tomb with the crystal. She'll know if there's another way." He answered looking back at the road.

"And where is Bree?" Katie asked looking around at the empty fields that they were driving past.

"Georgia, just outside Atlanta." He answered causing Katie's brows to shoot up. "Don't get your panties in a twist."

"Are you freaking kidding me? I'm missing school right now. I have a math test today for Christ sake and a history test tomorrow." Katie started freaking out, the reality of the situation sinking in.

Damon rolled his eyes. "If I promise to compel your teachers to let you make up the tests will you relax and enjoy yourself?" he asked.

Katie thought about it as she watched the fields pass by. "Fine." She sighed and uncrossed her arms from her chest. "But this doesn't count as uninterrupted time with you since Elena's here." She said pointing at him, reminding him about the deal they had made. Damon smiled and placed his hand on the back of her neck, caressing the side of it with his thumb.

"I should probably warn you about Bree though." Damon said making Katie give him a questioning look. "She's an ex-girlfriend of mine. So don't be mad if she kisses me as soon as she sees me."

"You're so cocky." Katie brushed him off.

A few minutes later, Elena woke up and sat up. "Where are we?" She asked as she looked around. Her eyes landed on Katie then Damon.

"We're in Georgia." Katie answered turning further to look at the confused Elena.

"No, seriously where are we?" Elena asked.

"Seriously. We're in Georgia." Damon answered looking back at her in the rear view mirror. "How are you feeling?"

"My car…there was a man…I hit a man…but then he got up and…who was that?" Elena asked leaning forward to look at Damon.

"That's what we would like to know." Damon replied not looking at her, but at the road.

"Where's my phone?" she asked feeling of her pockets. "Okay we really need to go back. Nobody knows were I am. Pull over." She told Damon who just ignored her. "I mean it Damon, pull over." He ignored her again. "Stop the car."

"Ugh, you were so much more fun when you were asleep." He scoffed and pulled the ca0r off to the side.

Katie listened as Elena argued with Damon about going back home. "I'm not going to Georgia." Elena argued as Katie got out of the car.

"Well, you're in Georgia. Without your magic little necklace I might add." Damon pointed out as Katie walked around him to look at Elena's neck. "I could very easily make you…agreeable."

"Damon." Katie spoke up in a warning tone as she gave him a pointed look. "Why did you take off your necklace?" Katie asked knowing that something big must've happened for Elena to take off the only protection she had from vampires.

"Because she found out that she looks exactly like Katherine. A little fact that Stefan forgot to tell her." Damon answered Katie then looked at Elena. "Am I right?"

"Um, I'm sorry, what?" Katie asked blinking up at Damon, but he didn't get a chance to answer her before Elena's phone started ringing in his pocket.

"That's my phone." Elena stated glaring at Damon.

He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. "It's your boyfriend." He held the phone out to Elena and she shook her head no so he answered it. "Elena's phone." He answered and they could hear the murmurs of Stefan on the other end. "Elena? Yeah she's right here and yes she's…fine." Damon held the phone out to Elena. "He wants to talk to you." Elena shook her head no. "Yeah…I don't think she really wants to talk to you right now." They could hear Stefan talking on the other end before Damon interrupted him with, "You have a good day. Bye now." Then hung up and handed Elena back her phone.

"No one knows where we are can we please just go back?" Elena asked Damon.

"We're almost there." Damon argued.

"Where is there?" Elena sighed.

"A little place just outside Atlanta." Damon answered as he walked over to Katie and wrapped his arm around her waist.

"Why aren't you fighting harder to go home?" Elena asked Katie.

"Because Damon promised to compel the teachers to let me make up the tests that I'm missing and honestly a time out from all the bull crap going on back home sounds fun, something you used to be a lot more of." Katie said.

"Come on, take a time out with us for five minutes?" he asked with a smile and raised brows.

Elena sighed. "Fine, as long as you promise not to do that mind control thing on me."

"Yes." He sighed. "Now get in the car." He jerked his head to the car then they all climbed inside.

"So where's my car?" Elena asked from where she sat in the middle of the back seat.

"I pulled it off to the side of the road. I don't think anyone will bother it." Damon answered, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the music. He looked across his shoulder at Katie, "Yours is at the boarding house."

"What about that man in the road?" Elena asked still not playing along with Damon's plan to get away and relax for one day.

"Oh, you mean the asshole vampire who bit me?" Katie asked sarcastically.

"So he was a-?"

"Yeah." Damon answered.

"You didn't know him?" Elena asked.

"If I've never met him I wouldn't know him." Damon answered uninterestedly. "I mean it's not like we all hang out together at the vamp bar and grill."

Damon rounded a corner in the street and parked outside of Bree's bar. "You brought us to a bar?" Elena asked before Damon and Katie got out and Katie leaned the seat forward for Elena to get out. "Damon, we're not old enough. They're not going to let us in."

"Elena?" Katie said getting her friends attention. "We're with Damon. We could probably get away with murder if we wanted to. I don't think getting into a bar is going to be a problem."

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of." Elena mumbled earning an eye roll from her friend.

When they walked into the bar the first thing Katie's eyes landed on was a beautiful, tall, dark complected bartender with dark curly hair. "No. No it can't be." She said as she walked to the side of the bar that the three of them walked over to. "Damon?" She asked as she hopped over the bar and stood in front of Damon. "My honey pie." She grabbed his face and started making out with him.

Elena looked at them, taken aback at the sight, then turned her eyes on Katie who didn't look surprised, just annoyed. "Are you okay with this?"

"Nope, but I _was_ warned." Katie answered then wiped the annoyed look off of her face as the two finally pulled apart.

Damon stepped over and wrapped his arm around Katie's waist. Katie made herself smile at Bree. "Bree this is my girlfriend Katie and her friend Elena." Damon introduced them then they sat down at the bar.

Bree set down a row of clear shot glasses then started pouring clear liquor in them as she said, "Listen up everybody! Here's to the man that broke my heart, crushed my soul, destroyed my life and ruined any and all chances of happiness." She sat a shot down in front of Katie then Damon then Elena and said, "Drink up." While she took her shot Damon took his and Elena's. Damon reached for Katie's, but found the glass missing and looked up from the bar to see her head tilted back downing the liquid.

She set the glass on the bar and made a face at the burn of the liquor then let her eyes travel to Damon to see him giving her a questioning look along with Elena. "What?"

"So how'd he rope you in?" Bree asked as she poured them more shots.

"He jumped onto my roof and talked me into letting him into my bedroom." Katie answered, not looking at Damon but at the bartender. "How did you meet Damon?"

"College." Bree answered with a smile.

"You went to College?" Elena asked surprised.

"I've been on a college campus, yes." Damon answered then took his shot.

"About twenty years ago I met this beautiful man, and I fell in love. And then he told me about his little secret, made me love him more. Because you see, I had a little secret of my own that I was dying to share with somebody." Bree explained.

"She's a witch." Damon whispered to Elena since she was asleep for that part of Katie and Damon's conversation.

"Changed my world." Bree said looking down at Damon.

"I rocked your world." Damon said with a lazy look at Bree as she slid his slid his hand over Katie's knee.

"He is good in the sack, isn't he?" Bree asked Katie who immediately blushed.

"I wouldn't know yet." She replied with a scratch at the back of her neck.

"Yet?" Damon asked looking over at her with big eyes.

"Yeah what happened to all that 'Caroline's over him and I want to get under him' and 'you only live once' stuff you were talking about before the founders party?" Elena asked with a laugh as she quoted Katie.

"Yeah and what happened to girl talk staying with the girls?" Katie asked leaning forward to look past Damon to Elena where she sat on the other side of him smiling.

Damon leaned over and kissed Katie's neck then whispered in her ear, "Were you planning on having sex with me that night?" he kissed her neck again and pulled back to look her in the eyes. She hummed a positive answered then let her eyes fall to the shot that Bree sat down in front of her, assuming she could use it. "Damn you, Stefan." Damon cursed as he hit the bar and turned to Elena. "I hate your boyfriend."

Katie grabbed the shot and tossed it back before slamming the glass down on the bar. "What time is it?" Katie asked no one in particular as she pulled out her phone and looked at the clock. "Oh look it's five o'clock. Bree can I have a beer please?" she asked as she hopped down off of the tall barstool. "If the night keeps going on like this I fully intend on getting smashed." She took the cold dark bottle from Bree and moved to a nearby table.

Elena's phone started ringing so she went outside to take it. Damon followed Katie to the table and sat down. "So do all your ex girlfriends have such colorful personalities?" Katie asked as Damon sat down next to her and took her beer from her hand.

He took a drink then gave it back. "No, some were actually kind of boring."

"Like me?" She asked with a raised brow.

"You're not boring." He argued as he looked into her eyes. "You're..." he didn't finish his sentence because Bree sat down beside him.

"So what can I do for you?" Bree asked as she kicked her feet up on the table.

Damon looked from her to Katie. "Will you give us a minute?"

"Yeah. I'll go check on Elena." She said as she got up and handed her beer to Damon.

As Katie neared Elena she heard her hang up with Jenna. "So is Jenna pissed you didn't come home last night?" Katie asked as she rounded Damon's car to stand next to Elena.

"Yeah, but she's Jenna so it's not like there are going to be any real consequences." She sighed. "So are you and Damon back together?" She asked with a glance back at the bar.

"It's kind of hard to not be with him." Katie sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the car.

"Its not hard, Katie, all you have to do is say no." Elena argued as she too leaned on the car.

"I don't want to say no. I know you don't like him and you don't trust him, but I do. He makes me happy, Elena." She said as she pushed herself off of the car and moved to stand in front of her friend. "You know how you were so sad after you lost your parents then Stefan came along and made you feel alive again?" Katie asked and Elena nodded. "That's what Damon does for me. So can you please just be happy that I am happy for once?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't stop to think about it like that." Elena said and had opened her mouth to say something else, but her phone started ringing, stopping her. "I'm here." Elena answered and Katie could hear Stefan's voice on the other end. "You lied." Elena's words were harsh. "So you didn't lie?" Elena stared pacing as she spoke to him. "How am I connected to Katherine, Stefan?" Katie had been wondering the same thing since learning that Elena looked like Katherine. "And I'm supposed to believe that?" Elena listened to Stefan for a total of two seconds before she hung up the phone.

Damon walked over and pulled Katie into his side. "You girls okay?"

"Mmhmm." Katie hummed answering for both of them.

"You hungry?" Damon asked looking down at Katie.

"Starving." Katie answered with a small smile.

"Then come on." He jerked his head for them to follow him so they did.

They ordered three burgers and fries then sat down at a table. "So let's just say that I'm a descendant from Katherine. Does that make me part vampire?" Elena asked as their food was sat down in front of them.

"Vampires can't procreate." Damon answered as he popped a fry into his mouth. "But we love to try." Katie and Elena both rolled their eyes. "No, if you were related it would mean that Katherine had a child before she was turned."

Katie took the top bun off her burger and picked off the onions while Elena did the same with her pickles. "Did Stefan think he could use me to replace her?" Elena asked.

"It's kind of creepy if you ask me." Damon said then noticed the girls removing their toppings. "Come on, you don't like pickles? What's wrong with you?" Damon asked Elena as he took her pickles that she set aside.

"How can you even eat if technically you're supposed to be...?" Elena asked not wanting to say the word dead.

"Dead?" Damon asked as he took the onions off of Katie's plate. "It's not such a bad word. As long as I keep a healthy diet of blood in my system my body functions pretty normally." Damon explained then tossed a fry into his mouth and smiled.

His eyes watched Katie as she picked up her burger and took a bite. Bree walked over and switched out Katie and Damon's empty bottles for fresh ones. "I'll have one too." Elena spoke up earning a look from Damon and Katie.

"What?" Katie asked with a smart ass smile. "Is the stick in the mud finally loosening up?"

"Time out remember? For five minutes. Yeah well that five minutes is going to need a beer." Elena said as Bree walked over with a beer and set it down in front of her.

Damon stuck his bottle out over the table and the girls clanked them all together. "You never told me what you wanted to go to college for." Damon said with a look at Katie then took a sip of his beer.

"I'm undecided." Katie answered.

"You don't want to go to med school anymore?" Elena asked with a frown.

"I think we both know I've been shooting too high with that one." Katie replied earning a frown from both Elena and Damon.

"What are you talking about? You're in the top of our class." Elena pointed out.

"Yeah and I'm fighting tooth and nail just to stay there. I have to try ten times as hard as everyone else." Katie pointed out then took a big drink of her beer. "Change of subject please." Katie suggested then took another bite of her burger.

The conversation went back to Elena and Katherine then when everyone was done with their dinner Elena suggested they do some shots so they moved back to the bar, a girl on each of Damon's sides. "Let's see who can drink the fastest." Bree prompted as she sat the shots down in front of them then counted to three. Katie tossed back the shot and slammed the glass into the bar in a flash.

"Looks like someone has a hidden talent." Damon said as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into his lap.

"I have more hidden talents than that." She smiled and pressed her alcohol slicked lips to his.

"Break it up you two." Elena said pulling them out of their kiss as another round of shots were poured and sat down in front of them. Katie once again threw it back before Damon and Elena could. "Are you seriously kicking my butt right now?" Elena asked with a laugh and raised brows.

"Yes, Elena, you're not always the best at everything." Katie popped off as another shot was poured. Bree counted to three then Katie purposely took her time with the shot, letting Elena win.

Elena did a little celebratory dance then ser her shot glass one the bar. "Are you okay?" Damon whispered in Katie's ear.

"Yeah I'm fine. I just forget how much of an attention whore she is when she drinks." Katie answered then when Bree put another shot down in front of them Katie picked it up. "Watch." Bree counted to three and Katie let Elena win again.

"Yeah!" Elena yelled as she threw her hands in the air and spun around. "Ha! I knew I could beat you." Elena said with a smile. "We're tied you wanna break it?"

"After this one I'm done." Katie replied as Bree poured some shots then counted to three. Katie tossed it back at lightening speed. "Would you look at that, I win." Katie smiled a bitchy smile at Elena then turned her eyes to Damon. "What's my prize?" Damon pressed his lips to hers. He had started kissing her neck when she pulled back and asked. "Where are the bathrooms?"

Damon pointed to them then she slid off his lap. As she circled around the corner that led to the bathrooms a hand went over her mouth and jerked her to the side as she was whooshed away. When she regained her ability to process thought after being brought outside at high speed she found herself being held from behind on top of a large tank of some kind. "Are you afraid of heights?" A voice asked before the vampire circled around her revealing his face to her. She could only nod at him. "Good then you will stay right here." He was trying to compel her.

"I'll stay here." She repeated then the vampire speed away. She was almost down the ladder when she spotted Damon and Elena walking around the building looking for her. She was going to call out to him but then the vampire came out of nowhere and started beating Damon with a metal baseball bat. "No!" Katie screamed as she tried to run to Damon but the vampire turned its reddened, vein framed eyes on her and she stopped in her tracks.

Katie stood still, not saying a word while Elena walked over to her, talking him down as she did. Apparently he was Lexis boyfriend and he wanted Damon dead for killing her. After the vampire threw Damon then sped away Katie's feet and mouth finally unfroze and she sprinted to Damon. "Oh my god, are you okay?" Katie asked looking down at Damon and pushing his hair out of his face before she looked up at Elena who was kneeled down on the other side of him. "Thank you."

They helped him stand up, not caring that he smelled of gasoline, then walked with him to his car. "You two stay out here. I'm going to go back inside for a minute."

"I'm coming with you." Katie spoke up as she took a step closer to him.

"I don't think that's such a good idea." He countered, placing a calming hand on the side of her neck.

"Damon, let me." She took his hand off of her neck and held it. "Please."

"Fine, come on." He placed his hand on the small of her back as they headed inside, but he grabbed her hand, stopping her just outside the door. "Why are you insisting on coming in here with me?"

"Because I know what you're about to do and if I'm going to be with you…I need to see it." she said as she gave his hand a squeeze.

He swallowed hard and gave her a nod before he grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open. When Bree turned around she looked shocked to see them alive. "We were just leaving. I wanted to say goodbye." He told her with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"Good to see you again, Damon." Bree replied.

"No kiss?" Damon asked still holding Katie's hand.

"I'm full of vervain. I put it in everything I drink." Bree answered looking both pissed and scared.

"And you're telling me this why?" Damon asked not looking at Katie as he pulled her into his side.

"Lexi was my friend. How could you?" Bree turned to walk away but Damon let go of Katie and sped around the bar, cutting Bree off. "The tomb can be opened."

Damon looked her up and down for a second then scoffed, "You're lying!"

Bree jumped back, more scared than mad now. "Emily's grimoire, her spell book." Bree said backing away as Damon closed in on her. "If you know how she closed the tomb the reversal process will be in her book. You can open that tomb."

"And where is this book?" Damon asked and Bree stumbled back and started stuttering. "You have no idea."

"I'm telling you the truth." Bree argued shakily.

"And I believe you." Damon reached up and cupped bree's face in his hand. "My dear, sweet Bree. That's why I'm almost sorry." Before Katie could even blink Damon shoved his hand into Bree's chest cavity and yanked out her heart. But Katie wasn't looking at his hand. Instead she looked at his eyes, that seemed so apologetic yet he still killed the woman because she had tried to have him killed.

Katie watched as Damon washed the blood from his hands. "Could you kill me just as easily?" she asked as he used a towel to dry his hands.

"If you did something to piss me off, yeah." He answered as he grabbed his jacket off of the back of one of the barstools.

"You once told me that you wanted me to be your moral compass. If I tell you something you don't want to hear are you just going to rip my heart out and not even think twice about it?" she asked turning in the stool to look at him.

He walked over to her and cupped her face in his hands. "I would never do that to you, okay?" he asked as he looked into her eyes.

"How can I be sure?" she asked.

As he looked into her green eyes he didn't see judgment or hatred just genuine worry for her safety. He's pressed his forehead to hers. "Because I have feelings for you, Katie."

She sighed and let her eyes slip shut before he pressed his lips to hers. "Okay." She whispered, "I believe you."

"Come on." He jerked his head to the door and she hopped down off of the bar and walked outside with him.

They had been driving for thirty minutes when Elena fell asleep in the back seat. "Why did you bring her with us?" Katie asked with a glance back at Elena.

"I knew it would piss off Stefan." He answered. "Why, are you jealous that I took both of you?"

"A little, but at the same time if you hadn't drug her along you would be dead right now." She said.

"You don't know that." He countered.

"Yes I do. I wouldn't have been able to talk him down the way she did. Hell I couldn't even have guessed that he was Lexi's boyfriend." She said reminding herself to keep her voice down so she didn't wake up Elena. "Do you want to know why I decided that I couldn't be a doctor? Because I don't do well under stress."

"You need to stop being so hard on yourself." Damon said with a glance over at her. "You can't blame yourself every time something bad happens to me."

"I can if I don't do a damn thing to even attempt to help." She argued.

"You attempting to help me will only put you in harms way. I actually prefer if you stay back and keep yourself safe." Damon argued back then reached over and placed his hand on her knee. "Don't be jealous of Elena."

"Even though she lookes exactly like the person that I've been trying to help you rescue from desiccation?" she asked as she grabbed his hand and threaded her fingers through it. "The supposed love of your life?"

"Yes. Unlike my brother I'm not trying to replace Katherine with her look alike." He answered with a smirk. He watched as Katie yawned and he noticed her eyelids growing heavy. "Get some sleep, I'll wake you when we're home." She nodded and got comfortable in her seat. Ten minutes later her soft relaxing snores filled the car.


	9. Chapter 9

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 9**

Katie was pulled from sleep by Damon running the backs of his fingers over her arm. "Wake up sleepy head." He whispered as she opened her eyes and saw him standing at her open door and she looked around to see that Elena was gone and they were parked in front of the boarding house. He held his hand out to her and she took it.

They headed inside and he led her to his room. "So this is your room?" she asked looking around at the large space that contained a huge four poster bed that sat on an antique rug, a large mirror, a fireplace, and a built in bookshelf that was on the wall behind his headboard.

"Yep." He commented as he watched her eyes follow the open floor plan to the bathroom that contained his luxurious shower that was walled in with glass and the deep bathtub made for soaking. He smiled a devious smile as he walked up behind her and started kissing her neck. "You wanna take a bath with me?" he asked just messing with her.

She sighed and tilted her head to the side. "I think a shower might be more affective." She whispered and he realized that she didn't say no. "Considering you were doused in gasoline we'll just end up soaking in a tub of watered down chemicals if we take a bath."

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he asked catching her eyes as he slid his hands over her stomach, pulling her closer to him.

"If you think that I'm saying that I'm tired of trying and failing to fight what I feel for you then…" she turned in his arms and draped her arms over his shoulders, "Yeah."

"So does that mean-?" he started, but Katie cut him off.

"I want you, Damon." She admitted as she slid her hand over his neck and down his chest. "And I'm tired of trying to talk myself out of it just because I know we aren't going to last."

"Are you sure?" he asked as he grabbed her hands off of his chest and held them in his.

"Positive." She smiled at him shyly. "So how about that shower?"

He grabbed her hand and led her into the bathroom then left her long enough to turn the water on. As he waited for it to get hot he turned to Katie and started kissing her as they both worked on stripping the other of their clothes. Steam filled the room by the time they were both nude and Damon led the way into the shower, feeling of the water to make sure it wasn't too hot before he pulled Katie under the shower head with him. She sighed at the combination of his wet skin against hers and the warm water that beat down on her tense muscles from over head. "Feel good?" he asked with a little laugh at her reaction.

"Mmhmm, very." She answered then took her wet glasses off and set them on the stone bench in the shower then leaned her head back, letting the water hit her face and push her hair back. He took the moment to admire her, letting his eyes scan her from head to toe.

She ran her hands over her face then smiled when she saw the way he was looking at her. "Like what you see?" she asked as she slid her hands over his wet chest then up to his shoulders he hummed a positive answer as he pressed his lips to hers. After making out and feeling every inch of his body Katie pulled back and asked. "Shampoo?"

Damon reached over and grabbed it off of the recessed shelf that contained several different bottles of soaps and shampoos then handed it to her. They refrained from touching each other while they washed their hair and bodies, but as soon as they were both soap and gasoline free Damon pulled her into him from behind and started kissing her neck. "Where?" he asked as he slid his hand up her stomach and cupped her breast in his hand, pulling a moan out of her and crashing her train of thought. All she could manage to do was reach up and thread her fingers into his hair. "Where, Katie Cat?" he asked again, putting her train of thought back on the tracks.

Not feeling like drying off to keep from getting his bed wet she turned around and pushed him to sit down on the stone bench. "Here." She answered as she moved to straddle him, surprising him that she wanted to be the one in charge. She held onto his shoulders as he kissed her and she lined herself up with him, but she hesitated making him open his eyes and stop kissing her. "I'm scared." She admitted as she pressed her forehead to his, but kept her eyes closed.

"Look at me." He ran his hands up the wet skin of her back then moved one to cup her face as she opened her eyes to stare into his. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to." He reminded her but she shook her head at the thought of turning back now.

"I want to I just…" she didn't know what to say, "I'm ruining the moment aren't I?" she sighed and leaned forward and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Nope." He answered and she looked up at him like he was crazy. "I promise." He reassured her with a small smile. She smiled then kissed him before she pulled back and looked into his eyes that didn't look away from hers as she lined herself up then sank down on him. When she hissed he pressed his lips to hers, kissing her through the pain that slowly faded. "You okay?" he asked when he finally pulled back and she nodded.

"I'm fine." She sighed as she started moving again, shutting both of them up for a few minutes. Needing to be in control Damon stood up, picking her up with him and pressed her into the glass. "Damon." She sighed as he started kissing her neck, holding on to her thigh with one hand as the other cupped the back of her neck.

"Katie." He moaned her name pushing her closer and closer to the edge.

"Damon I'm gonna…" he placed his lips over hers cutting her off as they climaxed together, her finger tips digging into his back as he grunted and pressed her harder into the glass. After a few seconds he let go of her legs and leaned back, letting her fall to stand on her own as he continued to kiss her.

Eventually he stepped back and pulled her under the still flowing water with him, rinsing them off one final time before he reached over and turned the water off. While he grabbed them some towels she squeezed the excess water out of her hair then grabbed her glasses. He handed her a white fluffy towel as she stepped out of the shower. "You can say something any time now." He prompted, getting worried at how quiet she was being as she wrapped herself in the towel then dried off her glasses with the corner of it.

"I kind of don't know what to say." She finally said as she slid her glasses onto her face. She walked over to one of the white porcelain sinks and wiped the water off of the mirror revealing her wet disheveled hair and flushed cheeks. "Usually there are all these thoughts flying through my head, but now it's just…quiet." She said as she looked away from her reflection to see him open the cabinet under the sink and pull out a brand new brush and a pack of black ponytail holders. Katie accepted them with a small smile.

"Isn't a quiet mind a good thing?" Damon asked as he wrapped his arms around her towel covered torso.

"I don't know. It's never happened before." Katie replied as she started brushing the knots out of her wavy wet locks. "But for the moment I'm not going to question it or the fact that you keep hair brushes and ponytail holders in your bathroom."

"Have I told you lately how amazing you are?" he asked, looking at her reflection in the mirror that blushed at him.

"No." she said with a small smile and a shake of her head.

"Well, you are." He said as started peppering her neck with kisses. "You're also beautiful and sexy and way too good for me." She rolled her eyes at the last compliment, but didn't fight him on it.

"You still want me to be your moral compass?" she asked as she finished brushing her hair then turned in his arms to look into his eyes. He hummed and nodded. "You understand that mean's you have to actually listen to me right?" she asked and he rolled his eyes but nodded again. "Okay." She nodded then started picking up their dirty clothes from where they were scattered around the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" he asked watching her.

"Gathering our dirty clothes, I can't walk out of this house in your clothes." She answered matter of factly.

"Stop." He sighed and held his hands out for the clothes. "Give me." He made a motion with his fingers asking for the clothes. So she set them in his hands then followed him to his bedroom. He tossed the clothes on the floor then grabbed a button up shirt and a pair of boxers out of a chest of drawers that sat near his bedroom door. She put on his clothes even though they swallowed her as he put on a pair of boxers and jeans. "I'll go put these on the wash for you." he scooped up the clothes then left the room. While he was gone Katie wandered over to the window and looked out at the moon lit sky.

She was still standing there, lost in thought when she heard Damon clear his throat behind her and she turned around to see that while she was zoned out he had placed a blanket down on the floor and scattered different foods around it. "What's this?" she asked realizing that she hadn't eaten anything since the burger at the bar the day before.

"A smorgasbord." He answered as he sat down on the blanket. "Join me."

Katie walked over and sat down on the blanket as she grabbed a strawberry off of a plate of fresh fruit and took a bite. "How long was I standing at the window?" Katie asked as she looked at her options of a fruit platter, a vegetables platter with ranch dip, and two sandwiches. He brought her a bottle of water to drink.

"I'd guess somewhere around fifteen minutes." He answered as he grabbed his sandwich and took a bite.

"Wow, okay." She said in confusion. "So, tell me more about you. How did you become a vampire?" Katie asked as she grabbed the vegetable tray and set it in her lap so that she could stretch her legs out in front of her.

"You really want to go there right now?" he asked and she nodded as she dipped a baby carrot in ranch.

"Yep. I want to know everything, no matter how dark it is. I want to know how you met Katherine, why she's so special, why you've made it your life's mission to make your brother miserable…everything." She answered then tossed the carrot into her mouth.

"Okay." He sighed then grabbed a remote she hadn't seen sitting beside him and pressed a button turning on a stereo for background noise. "I met Katherine in 1864 when I was still human. There were some fires in Atlanta that burned a lot of homes and killed a lot of people. Katherine claimed that her parents died in the fire and she needed a place to stay. So she stayed with us." He explained. "I abandoned the confederacy to stay home and be with her plus I only joined because my father pushed me to. I hated it. So of course abandoning earned me no brownie points with my father who already hated me."

"You're father hated you?" she asked as she set the vegetable tray aside and grabbed her sandwich, seeing what he put on it before she took a bite.

"Yep and Stefan was his golden boy." He answered with an eye roll.

"Is that why you hate him, because he was your father favorite?" she asked.

"Nope. I hate him because he is the reason our father caught Katherine, the reason our father shot us while we were trying to rescue Katherine and the reason I completed the transition even though I wanted to die because I thought the reason I wanted to be a vampire in the first place was dead."

"Your father sounds like a bigger ass than my grandpa." Katie commented then took another bite of her sandwich. "Hey, I haven't seen you drink any blood. Aren't you, like, hungry, hungry?" she asked then swallowed and grabbed the bottle of water.

"I had a few blood bags earlier, I'm good." He answered. "But yeah, my dad was an ass. He was also head of the founder's council."

"What about your mom, what was she like?" she asked and his face fell a little.

"She was beautiful and everything a respectable lady should be." He answered. "She died of consumption when I was seventeen."

"I'm sorry." She said as she grabbed another strawberry and bit off the tip. "That must've been hard."

"So what happened to your parents?" he asked to get the subject off of him.

"I don't know. They went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and didn't come back. We had a funeral for them, but the caskets were empty. If they ever found bodies I wasn't told about it." she said with a shrug. "So Katherine's the one who turned you?" Katie asked as she tossed the stem of the strawberry into the tray and moved to sit in the middle of his bed. He hummed a positive answer. "So how did Stefan force you to complete the transition?" she asked as she watched him sit down next to her then lay back.

"After our father shot us we woke up at Steven's Quarry. Emily gave us our daylight rings and we agreed that we were both going to die." He said as she moved to straddle him. "Stefan went to see our father and accidentally killed him and drank from him, completing the change. He brought a compelled woman back to the quarry and bit her knowing I wouldn't be able to resist the blood."

"So he caused what you thought was the death of the woman you both loved then forced you to be something you didn't want to be." Katie summed up as he grabbed her hands and threaded his fingers through hers. "Sounds like a good reason to hate someone, but I have one question."

"What's that?" he asked as he brought one of her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers.

"When you get Katherine out of that tomb and the two of you live happily ever after are you going to finally leave your brother alone and let him be happy with Elena?"

"Yes." He answered with a nod.

"And I take it Katherine's not going to bee too keen on sharing you?" Katie asked as she fell forward, pinning his hands down next to his head.

"No, most definitely not." He said with a shake of his head.

"Damn." She said as she kissed him then fell to the side.

"Would you really be okay with it if she would share me?" he asked with a devious smirk across his shoulder at her.

"Nope, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask." She said with a shrug and a sigh.

* * *

She woke up the next morning to Damon kissing his way down her chest that was only covered by his unbuttoned shirt that she had borrowed to sleep in. "You know, I could get used to waking up like this." She said with a sleepy smile as she brushed her fingers through his hair and he turned his blue eyes to her green ones as he kissed his way up her stomach, between her breasts then finally met her lips.

"Yeah?" he asked as he rolled over and brought her with him so that she was on top of him.

"Yeah." She answered as she moved her legs to straddle him then leaned down and started peppering kisses over his chest.

He sighed, liking what she was doing, "Do you have to work today?" he didn't want to ask, but he couldn't keep her from her life for forever.

"Yep." She answered then started kissing his neck. "But not until later."

"Here's an idea, why don't you quit your job at the grill and spend every day after school with me?" he knew what her answer was going to be but he couldn't help asking as he slid his hand over the soft skin of her pail back.

"How about no because I still need money to pay my bills?" she replied with a smart ass smile.

"And I have money to pay your bills." He argued with a close lipped smile that showed off the smile lines that Katie loved.

"And what do you suppose I do after you get Katherine back and then abandon me?" she asked. "As much as I would love to I can't quit my job."

"Fine." He sighed in defeat.

"So do you have any idea where the grimoire is?" Katie asked as she fell to lay beside him.

"I have an idea of where to start looking." He answered as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him. "My father kept a journal. There might be something in it about where it is."

"Okay." She answered hoping that it was going to take him a while to find the journal. She wanted him to get what he so desperately wanted, but she couldn't help having selfish thoughts about drawing out the process for as long as possible.

* * *

After work Katie pulled into her drive way seeing that her grandpa's car was there as well. Hoping he was still playing nice she went inside and saw him sitting on the couch with a beer in his hand and a football game playing on the TV that illuminated the dimly lit living room. She didn't greet him, thinking it would be a bad idea to draw attention to herself, and headed up to her room. She threw a couple days worth of clothes in a spare duffle bag along with her toothbrush and toothpaste. As an afterthought she grabbed her journal and a pen and tossed it on top of the clothes then zipped the bag.

She was heading down the stairs, ready to go to the boarding house when her grandpa spoke up. "Where are you going?"

"I'm staying the night at a friends." Katie answered vaguely as she reached for the door knob.

"Stop." He grandpa snapped and she heard the foot of the recliner pop as he put it down and got up. "Turn around and explain where you've been for the past three days."

"I stayed at Caroline's." Katie lied with a shrug.

"Stop lying to me for once in your life. I called all of your friend's parents and they all said you weren't there. So I'll ask you again. Where have you been?"

"I've been at the Salvatore boarding house." Katie answered.

"Why?" He asked with a scowl she'd seen way too many times, but this time she wasn't afraid of it.

"Come on Grandpa, figure it out." Katie said as she adjusted the bag on her shoulder.

"You're whoring yourself out to the Salvatore brothers now?" He asked as if he was disgusted with her.

"Just the one. Stefan's dating Elena." She answered with an angry, attitude induced sway of her head. "And even if he wasn't he's not my type."

"Anything with a dick is your type." He bit back. "Just like your mother."

Katie saw red and before she even knew what she was doing she'd broken her grandpa's nose. She stared in shock as he cupped his bleeding face and ran to the kitchen. She dropped her bag and followed him.

"Get out." He growled, his words muffled by the white washcloth he pressed to his tanned face.

"What?" Katie asked.

"I said," he moved the rag from his nose and glared at her, "get out and don't come back unless it's to pack your shit. You are no longer welcome here."

"Are you freaking kidding me!?" she yelled. "All these years you call me weak and a whore and a slut and everything that I'm not. And the second that I fight back you kick me out?" she asked glaring up at him.

"You act like a piece of trash and you get thrown out like one." He told her with a tone so cold she was surprised she didn't turn into a popsicle.

She gritted her teeth and scowled at her grandfather. "Screw you" She practically spat at him then turned and left the house.

She drove to the boarding house with angry tears in her eyes that she refused to let fall. She wouldn't cry over something that could easily be fixed with the help of Damon and his compulsion. But then she realized that she would be the biggest hypocrite on the face of the earth if she asked him to compel her grandfather to let her stay.

With thoughts flying through her head at the speed of light, Katie lifted her hand and knocked on the door. Stefan answered. "Hey, I wasn't expecting you."

"Um, Damon asked me to meet him." Katie told him flatly as he stepped aside and let her in.

"Are you okay?" Stefan asked as he shut the door then walked past her where she stood just inside the living room.

"Not really, no." She answered then made herself look up at Stefan to see his worried eyes taking her in. "No one's dead or anything." She assured him and he nodded but still looked worried. "I just…uh, is Damon here?" She asked looking around.

"No, he said he was going to grab dinner." He said with furrowed brows as he took in how hard she was trying not to cry. "Now that you're here I'm guessing he wasn't talking about blood."

"Yeah, probably not." Katie laughed quietly, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Why don't you sit down?" Stefan asked as he motioned to one of the red sofas in the room. Katie did as suggested. "I know you hate me, but I want you to know you can talk to me if you ever need to."

"I don't hate you Stefan. I just don't agree with some of the decisions you've made." Katie said with a sigh as she pushed her long hair out of her face. "My uh, my grandpa kicked me out." She admitted as she picked at her cuticles and a few tears slipped from her eyes. She quickly wiped them away not wanting to look weak.

Stefan was trying to think of what to say when they heard the front door open they both looked up to see Damon walk in with two drown paper sacks in his hands. He froze when he saw Katie's red cheeks. Stefan sped over to his brother before he could assume the worst. She heard them whispering before Damon walked over to her and held his hand out for her. She didn't question him and took it.

He led her up the stairs and to a wooden door that looked as old as the rest of the house. He pushed it open then flipped the light switch revealing a room similar to Damon's in size with an unmade, white, antique, canopy bed and dust covers over the rest of the furniture. "Welcome to your new room."

"What? No, Damon, I can't accept this. I can't-" She started as she backed out of the room, but he put his hand over her mouth, shutting her up.

"You can and you will." He told her then dropped his hand. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you want."

"Damon I...I don't know what to say." She said speechless.

"Say you'll stay." He said with a smile. "Or thank you. Either one works."

"Okay, I'll stay." She sighed not seeing any other option, because as much as she didn't want to intrude, she couldn't see going back to her grandfathers. "Thank you."

"Good." He grabbed her hand and led her to the kitchen where Stefan had brought the bags of food that Damon had brought inside. "So why did he kick you out?" he asked as he took take out containers out of the bags and set them on the bar.

"He wanted to know where I'd been. At first I lied, but he knew it was a lie so I told him that I had been staying here." She said as she sat down at one of the bar stools. "He accused me of sleeping with you and your brother and called me a whore just like my mother. I broke his nose."

Damon started laughing. "You broke his nose?"

"It's not like he's never broken mine." She shrugged. "After that he told me to get out and not come back unless it was to pack my stuff."

"Do you want me to help you pack tomorrow?" He asked as he set out the last of the food containers

"No, I'll go pack when I can look at him without re-breaking his nose." She answered as he pushed a container to her. "What's all this?" she asked not opening it.

"I didn't know what Italian food you liked so I got a little of everything." He said with a shrug. "For future reference, what is your favorite kind of food?" he asked as he pushed another container to her.

"Chinese." She answered with a smile. "General Tso's chicken with fried rice." She opened a couple of the containers seeing what her options were. When he set out a white bag of breadsticks she grabbed one and continued opening the other two of the four containers as she ate it. Her options where shrimp alfredo, four cheese lasagna, eggplant parmesan and chicken parmesan. "What do you think is my favorite out of these?" she asked challengingly.

He looked at her quizzically trying to get any hint from her face that he could. "What do I get if guess right?" he asked.

"Me in your bed tonight." She answered making him give her a one sided smile that made her smile. "Even though my new bed looked _very_ comfortable."

He pushed the eggplant to her and she bit her lips closed, holding back her reaction. "So did I win?" he asked.

Katie shook her head no and pushed the container away then grabbed the lasagna. "Nope looks like I'll be sleeping alone tonight." She laughed as she grabbed a plastic fork and started eating.

"You're so mean." He complained as he walked around the bar and started kissing her neck.

"And you're trying to make me fat." She countered then dipped her bread stick into the red sauce and took a bite. "Seriously, if I'm going to be living here I'm going to be cooking for myself. No more smorgasbords or take out."

"Fine, I'll stop spoiling you." he sighed and let go of her to start putting what she wasn't going to eat into the fridge.

"If you want my blood to taste like it used to I have to stick to my diet." She pointed out and he stuck his head from behind the fridge door to look at her with squinted eyes.

"Are you offering?" his tone sent a pleasant shock wave through her body and she blushed as she nodded. "I thought you wanted me to stop feeding on people." He put the last container in the fridge then shut the door and walked over to lean on the bar across from her.

"Yeah, unwilling people that you'll have to brainwash, but I'm different." She said with a shrug. "But same rules as before apply. No biting where people can see."

"I can handle that." He told her with a smoldering look in his eyes.

When she finished eating Damon helped her take the dust covers off of the furniture in her room and showed her where the linen closet was then let her get to the homework that she had failed to do since getting back from Georgia.

* * *

After making up her tests after school she headed to work. She was walking around the bar from the back, texting Damon as she walked when she heard him ask, "What you doin?" and looked up to see him sitting at the bar.

"Texting you." she said as she put her phone away.

"What are you doing here? Don't you have a book to be hunting down?" she asked as she reached behind herself and started tying her apron strings.

"Yes, but I needed a drink first." He answered with a smart ass smile.

"Is this guy bothering you?" Ben McKittrick, an ex high school football star and the new bartender, asked as he walked over to them and set his hand on Katie's shoulder as if he knew her.

Katie looked at Ben's hand on her shoulder then over at Damon. "You know this guy?" Damon asked with a glare at the handsome guy touching his girlfriend.

"I know _of_ this guy." Katie answered as she reached up and gingerly grabbed Ben's wrist and took his hand off her shoulder. "Every girl in my class lusted after him during my freshman year and he knew it." Katie said to Damon but looked at Ben. "But I'm pretty sure he doesn't even remember my name. Do you?" she saw his eyes slip down to see if she was wearing a name tag, but she wasn't.

"Um, Kelly?" Ben asked completely unsure of as he tried to play it off as cute.

"Oof." Damon scoffed. "So close yet so far."

Katie smiled at him then turned her eyes back to Ben. "It's Katie." She told him with an overly polite smile. "And to answer your question, no he's not bothering me." She turned her attention back to Damon. "I'll see you tonight."

"Mmhmm." He hummed as she leaned across the bar and kissed him. He watched her get to work, checking out how nice her but looked in the dark wash jean shorts she was wearing.

Things had started to slow down from the after school crowd when Katie saw Elena and Bonnie come in and sit down in her section. "Do you have time to sit for a minute?" Elena asked as Katie walked over.

"Yeah, sure, what's up?" She asked as she sat down at the table.

"So I've been filling Bonnie in on the whole I look like Katherine thing." Elena started as Katie looked back and forth between them. "And I had a talk with Stefan the other night. It turns out that I'm adopted."

"What?" Katie and Bonnie asked at the same time.

"Yeah. Stefan looked at the hospital records. There's no trace of my mother giving birth to me. No record anywhere that she was ever even pregnant." Elena explained.

"I can't believe you're adopted. I never saw that coming." Bonnie said in shock.

"But it gets weirder." Elena added. "I looked at my birth certificate and it lists Miranda and Grayson Gilbert as my birth parents. None of it makes any sense."

"Have you tried talking to Jenna about it?" Katie asked and Elena wrinkled her nose. "Come on, Jenna's cool she'll tell you the truth."

"Yeah and the Elena I know would always want the truth, good or bad." Bonnie encouraged. "Besides, you just found out that you're boyfriend is a..." she lowered her voice, "vampire, so unless your birth parents are aliens how bad could it be?"

Elena and Katie laughed. "Okay." Katie stood up. "I gotta get back to work. Can I get you guys anything?" She took their order and got back to work.

When she was done with work she did a little bit of shopping then headed to the boarding house. Damon kept her company while she made herself a grilled chicken salad for dinner. "So do you have to work tomorrow night?" He asked as he grabbed a piece of chicken and ate it.

"Nope." She answered as she moved the chicken where he couldn't reach it. "Matt started working at the grill so I actually have the night off."

"Do you need a date to the fifties dance?" he asked and she gave him a suspicious look. "No strings attached. I promise." He held up his hands in surrender.

"I didn't take you for the themed dance type." She replied still not giving him an answer.

"I'm not, but if it means I get to spend the night dancing with you then I'm all in." he said giving her a smile that made her roll her eyes.

"Sure, you can be my date." She told him with a smile then grabbed her salad and moved to eat it at the table in the kitchen he kept her company while she ate and did what homework she had to do then she let him pull her to his bed for the night.


	10. Chapter 10

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 10**

Katie and Damon were about to walk out the door of the boarding house to go to the fifties dance when Damon's phone started ringing. He answered it and after a few minutes hung up. "We have to make a pit stop on the way to the dance." He told Katie as he opened the door for her then walked out behind her. "A vampire got into Elena house and tried to attack her."

A few minutes later they pulled up to Elena's house and let themselves inside. They all migrated to the living room and Katie plopped down in the armchair near the couch.

"We're pretty sure it's the same guy she hit with her car. He's been stalking her every since." Stefan said as he and Elena sat down on the couch.

"How did he get in?" Damon asked as he walked over and nudged Katie silently asking her to get up.

"He was invited in." Elena answered looking like she was in a slight state of shock.

"He posed as a pizza delivery guy last night." Stefan added as Damon sat down in the chair and pulled Katie down to sit in his lap.

"Well, he gets points for that. Did he say what he wanted?" he asked as he ran his hand up and down Katie's thigh.

"No. He was too busy trying to kill me." Elena popped off.

"And you have no idea who this is?" Stefan asked with a pointed look at Damon.

"No." Damon answered with a scoff and Stefan just kept looking at him. "Don't look at me like that. I told you we had company."

"You think there's more than one?" Katie asked looking over her shoulder at Damon.

"We don't know." Damon shrugged.

"Damon, he was invited in." Stefan pointed out again.

"Then we go get him tonight." Damon said as if it were the obvious plan then looked at Elena. "You up for it?"

"What do I have to do?" she asked skeptically.

"Let your boyfriend take you to the dance." Damon answered and noticed Katie picking at her cuticles so he grabbed her hands in his stopping her. "We'll see who shows up."

"That's a bad idea." Stefan argued.

"Is it though?" Katie asked. "I mean, supposedly you guys live for the hunt and if he's been stalking her like you say he has then he'll know that she's going to the dance and he'll be there when she does." Katie pointed out. "All you two have to do is be ready for him."

Elena and Stefan seemed to think about it. "Until we get him this house isn't safe. Or anyone who lives in it." Damon added. Stefan and Elena were silent. "It's worth a shot."

"I'll do it." Elena said then grabbed Stefan's hand. "I'll be with you two. I'll be safe." Both of the guys were looking at Elena making Katie feel as if she wasn't even in the room.

In that moment all Katie could think about was the fact that no matter what everything always seemed to be about Elena. Rather it was human guys or vampire guys everyone seemed to want to hurt her or be with her. Either way it's all about her and it always made things awkward for Katie. "Okay, so, let's go catch a bad guy, or whatever." Katie said in an attempt to break the silence making Damon cut his eyes up at her with a smirk.

Damon opened her car door for her then shut it behind her and got inside himself. "Are you up for this? It could put you in danger too." He asked.

"Yep." She sighed. "Anyone, including vampires, mess with my friends and they mess with me." She said as she buckled her seatbelt.

"Slow down there cowgirl. Let Stefan and me do all the hard work. You just keep those observant eyes of yours peeled for the guy." He told her with a laugh in his voice.

"Can I ask you something?" Katie asked and Damon nodded and hummed. "How does the whole invitation rule work with the boarding house? Since you and Stefan are the only ones living there and you're technically dead can any vampire just walk right in?" she asked making Damon knit his brows together.

"I didn't think about that before I asked you to live with us." He commented more to himself than her. "A living person's name has to be on the deed to the house for the rule to apply. After that any human inside the house can invite a vampire in."

"So I'm not safe at that house?" Katie asked with a frown.

"Just because vampires can get in doesn't mean you're not safe." he said as he reached over and grabbed her hand. "I got you." she smiled at him and gave his hand a squeeze.

* * *

They walked into the dance, Elena on Stefan's arm and Katie on Damon's. "Come on." Elena jerked her head to Bonnie and Caroline headed their way from where they had been on the dance floor and the four girls met up at one of the tables. "Having fun?" Elena asked them.

"No, but this," Caroline motioned to her yellow outfit and super curly pinned up hair, "took about two hours. So I'm at least staying for half that."

"What's Damon doing here?" Bonnie asked seeing Damon and Stefan standing behind Katie and Elena, looking around.

"Um," Katie started awkwardly, "he's my date."

"Really?" Bonnie asked with a grossed out face.

Katie gave her a tight lipped smile and shrugged. "I know you guys don't like him, he doesn't exactly make the best first impression, but I do." She explained.

"Katie please tell me you didn't." Bonnie said, being able to read the look on Katie's face like an open book with large print. Katie blushed and scratched the back of her neck. "Seriously, him?"

"What am I missing?" Elena asked not being able to read Katie as well as Bonnie could.

"Katie and Damon had sex." Bonnie blurted out.

"What?" Elena asked with wide eyes.

"Oh my God. You gave him you're v-card? How was he?" Caroline asked in a rush with a big smile. "I told you he was good." She said with a wiggle of her brows and a knowing smile.

Katie looked over her shoulder at Damon to see him smirking to himself, obviously listening to them. "Can we please not talk about this here?" She asked turning her eyes back to her friends. "Besides it's not like I have much to compare him to."

"But really, him? Katie you could do so much better." Bonnie said making Katie sigh and lean forward to rest her head on the table.

"We're just afraid that you're going to get hurt." Elena tried to explain things.

"I'm not going to get hurt so just stop worrying, please." Katie left her friends and headed over to Damon and Stefan.

"You okay?" Stefan asked at her frown and she just nodded stiffly.

"Her friends don't like me. Go figure." Damon explained with an eye roll. He stepped closer to Katie and placed his hands on each side of her face as she looked up at him and he pecked her on the lips. "They'll get over it."

"I hope so, because I miss when my friends were fun and less judgmental." Katie sighed and grabbed his hands off of her face. "Take my mind off of it?" She asked with a jerk of her head to the dance floor where people were dancing to a slow song.

"Gladly." He told her as he wrapped his arm around her waist and walked to the dance floor. "I thought you didn't like dancing."

"I never said I didn't like it. I just didn't know how to." She argued as he started leading her around the dance floor.

"Well, now you know, thanks to me." He told her with a cocky smile.

She smiled back with a shake of her head. "I'm figuring out that I'd probably try anything if you asked me to." She admitted then frowned as she realized something.

"What?" He drawled suspiciously.

"Am I a doormat?" She asked not looking him in the eyes.

"No." He answered without a second thought.

She wanted to argue with him, but the slow song ended. So instead she excused herself from Damon with the intention of letting him keep an eye out for anyone suspicious while she tried to have a non Damon related conversation with her friends, but Bonnie and Caroline were nowhere to be seen and Elena was on the dance floor with Stefan. So Katie went to the restroom and touched up her lip gloss.

When she walked back into the gym she spotted Damon and Mr. Saltzman standing beside each other talking. Katie waited at a table not wanting to interrupt them. "So what were you and Mr. Saltzman talking about?" She asked curiously.

"He was chatting me up, being nosey. I don't like him." He told her and she gave him a curious tilt of her head.

"Really? I do." She said looking behind him to where Alaric stood talking to Jenna.

"You do?" He asked and she nodded. "How much? Do I need to kill him?"

Katie smirked at him. "Aww are jealous?"

"Well you _are_ in to older guys." He commented.

"No. I'm in to you." She countered then let her smile fall. "Seriously though, I like him. He's a good teacher. One of the few who genuinely cares about his students." She explained. "He actually stood up to mayor douche bag."

"So is that what it takes to earn brownie points with you? Stand up to the assholes in your life." He asked.

"Well, it worked for you. You got the grand douche off my back and offered to kill the mayor so..." she answered with a smile and a shrug. When "My Boyfriends Back" came on Damon held his hand out to her and she took it.

They where dirty dancing, Katie laughing at Damon being silly and handsy with his dance moves, when she saw Elena run through one of the exit doors. "Damon." Her smile fell.

Her serious tone made Damon stop in his tracks. "What."

"Elena just ran through that door. Something's up." she said as she pointed to the door.

"Come on." He grabbed her hand and they headed to the door. They found Elena in the cafeteria the vampire was trying to bite her neck but Stefan came out of nowhere and threw him off of her before he could bite her. "Stay behind me." Damon told Katie as he picked up the broken mop handle off the floor then got the guys attention. "Hey, Dickhead!" The guy looked at him and Damon held his hands up. "Nobody wants to kill ya. We just want to talk."

The vampire made a run for Stefan and Elena who were across the cafeteria from them so Damon threw Stefan the broken handle and Stefan staked him, making him fall to the floor on his knees. "Now do you feel like talkin'?" Stefan asked while Elena looked at Stefan in horror.

Damon and Katie walked over as the guy said, "Screw you."

Katie stood between Damon and Elena, creating a semi-circle around the guy as Stefan pulled the stake out and stabbed him again. "Wrong answer. Why are you doing this?"

Katie looked between Damon and the still unnamed vampire. Damon, staring at the vamp with his arms crossed over his chest sensed Katie's eyes on him and placed his hand on the small of her back comfortingly. "Because its fun." The guy answered and Stefan twisted the stake in the guy's stomach. Elena closed her eyes and turned her head. When she opened them they landed on Katie, standing next to Damon, who smirked down at the guy, while Katie glared at him.

"What do you want with Elena?" Stefan asked.

"She looks like Katherine." The vampire panted out the words in pain.

The four of them shared a look before Damon asked, "You knew Katherine?"

"Aww, you thought you were the only ones." The guy replied sarcastically. "You don't even remember me."

"Tell me how to get into the tomb." Damon said as he dropped his arms and placed his hands on his knees as he bent down and looked the guy in the face.

"No." He guy huffed out. Stefan grabbed the stake and gave it a twist. The vampire grunted in pain. "The grimoire." He stated.

"Where is it?" Damon asked and when the guy didn't give an answer Stefan twisted the stake again. Elena looked away from her boyfriend torturing another vampire and at Katie, seeing that her friend wasn't looking away and instead glared down at him as if torture was no big deal.

"Check he journal." The guy practically screamed.

"Who's journal?" Katie asked stepping up beside Damon earning a look from Elena who was surprised to see Katie joining in with the questioning.

"Jonathan, Jonathan Gilbert." The guy answered quickly so Stefan wouldn't hurt him again.

Katie looked at Elena to see her looking at Stefan with creased brows. "Who else is working with you?" Stefan asked. The guy didn't answer. "Who else is there?" Stefan asked this time raising his voice.

"No. You're gonna have to kill me." The guy answered and Stefan looked at Damon who just nodded his head. So Stefan pulled the stake out, making the vampire groan out in agony then stabbed him in the heart.

Katie just watched as his veins popped up from his skin that turned a grayish blue. "But…" Elena argued making them all look at her, "What do we… How are you gonna find the others now?" she asked, stumbling over her words.

"He had to die." Damon told her.

"But…" she started.

Katie interrupted her. "Elena, he'd been invited into your house. It was him or you. Easy choice." She told her friend with a hard face. Elena just looked between the three of them with wide, worried eyes.

When they heard something outside the cafeteria doors they looked up to see that someone had walked by. "Go." Stefan told Damon. "I've got them." Damon gave Katie a look that told her to listen to Stefan then ran from the cafeteria. The three of them stood in silence until Damon came back. "You two wait here." Stefan told the girls then clapped his hand down on to his brother's shoulder as they walked out into the hallway to talk.

"Are you okay?" Katie asked Elena as she started picking up the mess that Elena had made while fighting off the vampire.

"Yeah…Yeah." Elena answered not looking like she was sure as she started picking up the papers that were scattered across the floor. "Are _you_ okay? You look…unfazed." Elena said as she started straightening the papers on the table.

"I'm fine." Katie shrugged then pulled a grossed out face as she picked up a bloody pencil and tossed it onto the vampire's dead body.

"I'm really worried about you." Elena told her making Katie groan in aggravation. "I'm serious, Katie." Elena stood back and watched as Katie picked up the white folding table that had been knocked over. "The whole time they were torturing that guy you didn't even bat an eye. It's like you've become desensitized to death, to torture, to all of it."

Katie straightened the table. "So what if I have, Elena. Death is a part of life and rather you and I like it or not we are living in a whole new world. One where vampires and witches are real and sometimes torture is the only way to get things done."

"Do you even hear yourself right now?" Elena asked with a judgmental frown. "Being with him is changing you and I'm not sure I like who you're becoming."

"I hear myself perfectly fine and I am changing because I have to. So do you, but you and your boyfriend are exactly alike. Damon embraces what he is and I understand it. He sees being a vampire for what is it and what it means he has to be and do. He doesn't shut it all out and bottle it all up the way Stefan does and the way you're doing." Katie argued as she picked up the rest of the pencils and put them down onto the table. "So I'm sorry if I weirdly feel like I fit into his world, but I'm still me." She walked off away from Elena.

* * *

Damon sat in his bath tub, Katie leaning against him. He had a glass of wine in one hand and the other played with the bubbles that had accumulated on Katie's shoulder. "You okay?" he asked then took a drink of the wine and reached around her offering her the glass. "You haven't said a word since we left the school."

"Yeah." she answered as she took the glass then really thought about it. She wasn't okay and she didn't know what to do about it. "I take that back. I'm not okay." She said then took a drink of the wine and made a face at the bitter taste as she handed it back to him.

"Talk to me." He encouraged quietly as he set the glass on the floor then wrapped his arms around her waist.

"According to Elena I've changed since I've been with you." Katie said as she slid down in the water, resting her head on his chest, the water line touching her earlobes. "And she's right, I have, but she seems to think that I've changed for the worse instead of the better."

"What do you think?" he asked looking down at her as he placed some bubbles on the tip of her nose making her smile despite the serious conversation.

"I think…" she blew on her nose making the bubbles go flying, "that I don't know what I think. I've been so wrapped up in helping you find Katherine and enjoying being with you before you find her that I haven't stopped to actually evaluate myself and who I'm becoming." His hands slid to her shoulders and started massaging making her sigh and close her eyes. In that moment she found herself wanting to say I love you and that realization caused her eyes to shoot open.

Her heart started racing and Damon heard it loud and clear. He tried to look at her face, but she sat up. "Katie…" he drawled, his tone telling her to look at him, but she didn't. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She told him with a head shake as she closed her eyes and tried to push away the tears that were forming in them as she tried to slow her heart rate that she realized had tipped him off to her change of mood.

"You're lying to me." He pointed out as he moved her around in the slick water so that she was facing him, but she started down at the bubbles instead of at him. "We don't lie to each other. That's what I love about us. It's why I trust you more than I've trusted anyone in a very long time."

His confession and the use of the L word caused the deep breath she took to be shaky and he grabbed her face in his wet, bubble covered hands and made her look at him. "I…am…a naïve, immature, stupid, idiot." She told him with a shake of her head, refusing to let tears fall as she got angry with herself.

"Are those your words or Elena's?" he asked thinking she was still on the subject of how she had changed since she'd been with him.

"Mine." She answered and he gave her a confused, questioning shake of his head. "I just realized that I've fallen in love with you, Damon." She was surprised when over the course of three seconds his eyes grew wide, he almost looked hurt, then everything about him softened as he grabbed her face and pulled her in for a kiss so full of everything he knew he wouldn't be able to put into words.

It wasn't that he couldn't tell a woman he loved her. He'd lied all the time to women just to tell them what they wanted to hear for most of his life. But he hadn't told a woman that he'd loved her and meant it since Katherine. And he still loved Katherine, so he couldn't let himself say he loved Katie. He stopped kissing her and pressed his forehead to hers as they both opened their eyes. He opened his mouth to say something.

But Katie cut him off, "Don't say it back." she said as she blinked and a tear betrayed her as it slipped from the corner of her eye. "I can handle loving you and not knowing if you love me back when she takes you away from me." she told him as a few more tears slipped from her eyes to land in the water.

"And if I do say it back?" he asked, slipping his hand over her cheek and she closed her eyes at the feel of him

"If you say it back, I won't be able to handle it when you chose her over me. I've already stupidly set myself up for heartbreak. Don't turn a break into an explosion." She pleaded then opened her eyes to stare into his beautiful blue eyes.

"How do you know I'll choose her over you?" he asked as he leaned back and she turned around and leaned against him as he wrapped his arms around her.

"I just do." She shrugged as she slid her hands over his arms.

"That's not an answer." He sing songed as he wrapped his legs around her making her smile the smallest of smiles.

Katie held up her right hand, palm facing up as if she were holding an invisible platter. "Gorgeous vampire who loved you when you were still human and still has you wrapped around her desiccated little finger over a hundred years later." She then held up her left hand that was full of bubbles. "Stupid, human, teenager me." She moved her hands as if they were a scale then raised one hand higher than the other. "Ding, ding, ding and the winner is: gorgeous vampire love of you life."

"You don't give yourself enough credit." He argued.

She turned in his arms and he dropped his legs from around her. "Shut up and turn my mind off for me." She told him as she wrapped her legs around him.

"Mmm, gladly." He told in a deeper, sensual voice that instantly had her ready.

* * *

"You know one of these days you're going to have to actually move in here right?" Damon said as he laid in bed watching Katie pull on one of his button up shirts and a pair of his boxers, her hair wrapped in one of his white towels. "Not that I don't love the sight of you in my clothes, because I _really_ do."

"I'll go start packing tomorrow after school." She told him with a sigh as she took her hair out of the towel and started drying it with it. "I promise. I'm just not looking forward to it."

"Do you want help?" he asked as she stopped drying her hair and disappeared into the bathroom.

"Sure, why not?" she called then came out of the bathroom, buttoning up his shirt as she did.

"No." he pouted, "Don't button it."

"Well I can't walk to my room with it wide open now can I?" she asked not getting in bed with him. "It's bad enough I could run into Stefan dressed like this on the way to my room."

"You're abandoning me?" he asked as he got out of bed and walked over to her where she stood at the foot of his bed.

"I could really use some time to myself." She sighed as she placed her hands on his still nude chest. "Besides, what's the point of having my own room if I never sleep in it?" she asked with a small smile.

"Please stay with me?" he pleaded, poking his bottom lip out like a pouting little kid.

She bit it then kissed him. "I'm sorry…" she pouted back at him. "But no."

He let out an aggravated growl. "Fine." He pecked her on the lips. "Take all the time you need." She smiled as he kissed her long and deep then gently pushed her away. "Good night Katie Cat."

"Good night." She walked out of his room and quietly to hers. She sat down at the desk in the room and slid her journal across it. With a weary sigh she flipped to the next empty page and started writing. "I realized tonight, while soaking with Damon in his freaking awesome tub, that I have made the biggest mistake I could've ever possibly made. I've fallen in love with him, hard. I don't know if he loves me back and I don't want to. If he told me he loves me too then I fear that I may never be able to love again. I knew when we started all of this that he wasn't available. He's Katherine's and he's so enthralled with her and invested in her that I know I will never truly have his heart. Even if I have it now as soon as she gets out of that tomb I'm done for. Hell, she might even rip my throat out when she finds out I've been with him."

Katie paused and swallowed hard. "I think Elena and Bonnie think that he has me blinded. Like I don't know that he's not a good person. He's selfish, self serving and cocky as hell not to mention a murderer. But when he's with me and it's just the two of us he's the sweetest, most caring person I've ever met. It feels like he really cares about me, and maybe I'm fooling myself into thinking he does, but it's so easy to lose myself in him. He's like a drug that I'm addicted to. Even though being with him is going to hurt me I can't help but think it's worth how happy I feel when I'm with him. Yes Elena and Bonnie can pull that feeling down when we talk about him, but then I come home to him and it all fades away."

"Because of him I don't even have to see my grandfather every day. He offered me a room in his home and is even going to help me move here tomorrow. My room here alone could fit half of my house in it. As much I hate that my friends don't like him and Elena and I are drifting apart, I really am happier than I have been in a long time and it's all because of Damon. So how could I not fall for him? It's going to really suck when he gets Katherine out of that tomb. I'm sure after he gets her back they will run off together. Then after that it will be up to Stefan if I get to keep living here or not, but he and Damon mutually decided that I could stay here. So I don't see that changing unless Elena doesn't like me living alone with her boyfriend. But that is a bridge for another day. This entry is getting long and pointless so I'm going to sign off now. Good night journal."

She closed the book and pushed it aside then ran her fingers through her hair. She wasn't sleepy and all her homework had been done. So out of boredom she tore a piece of paper out of her journal and started writing a poem. She didn't do it often, but she was actually good at it. It helped her get her feelings out in a creative manner and get out of her head for a little while.

After writing what felt like half of a song and feeling satisfied with what she'd just written she folded it up and stuck it in the back of the spiral along with some of her other poems. After making sure her phone was plugged into the charger at the desk and her alarm was set to get her up for school in the morning she slid into her bed for the first time since moving there and tried to go to sleep. However sleep didn't come and after thirty minutes of tossing and turning she flung herself from her bed, grabbed her phone then made her way back to Damon's room.

She used the light of her phone and the moon, coming through the opened windows of his room to find her way to his bed and slide between the sheets. "You just couldn't stay away could you?" he asked and she could hear the cocky smirk in his voice.

"You've spoiled me." She admitted as she snuggled into his side and he wrapped his arm around her. "I can't sleep without you now."

"Mmm, good." He hummed as he kissed her on the cheek. "I hate sleeping alone."

* * *

After school the next day Katie called her boss and told her she wouldn't be able to make in to work and told her why. Luckily her boss liked her and understood. So Katie drove to her grandfather's house and saw a truck with a trailer attached to it was parked in front of the house. Damon stood on the front porch waiting for her and her grandfather wasn't home. "What's with the truck?" Katie asked as she walked up the porch steps.

"You didn't think we were going to make a thousand different trips in your car did you?" he asked as he watched her walk up to the door and unlock it.

"I honestly hadn't thought about it." she answered as she pushed the door open and went directly for the stairs.

"Okay, then let's get to work." He said as he clapped his hands then rubbed them together as they headed to her room. She started packing the books that lined her headboard while Damon started on her closet. After a few hours they had half of her room packed and Damon had started taking the clothes out of her dresser when he found two thongs. "Mmm. When am I going to get to see you wear one of these?" He asked holding up a hot pink thong with the words "Spank me, I've been a bad girl." written on it. It still had the tag on it.

"God, I forgot about those." She said with a smile as she grabbed a light blue lacy pair and held them up. "They were a gag gift from Caroline freshman year. She knew she'd get a reaction out of me because I was supposedly such a prude." She rolled her eyes. "So you like thongs?" She asked as she took the pink one out of his hand and tossed both of them into the box with the rest of her underwear.

"Eh, it all looks the same to me. I just wanted an excuse to spank you." He told her with a cheeky smile.

"Who said you need an excuse?" She asked with a challenging smile.

"Katie Finnegan, you keep on surprising me." He told her with lust in his eyes as he leaned down and kissed her. They got back to work packing her stuff and after they had cleaned out everything Damon asked, "The dresser, taking or leaving?"

"Leaving. The only thing left in here that I want is the roll top desk." She said with a point at the desk.

"Really, why?" He asked with a look at the old, ugly desk.

"It was my father's and the only thing of my parents that my grandpa didn't sell." She answered as she walked over and started pulling the drawers out of it so that they didn't slide open while Damon carried it down the stairs.

"Hey, what's that?" Damon asked with a point to one of the drawers.

"What's what?" Katie asked attempting to find what he was talking about.

"This." Damon walked over and took a drawer out of her hand and turned it over revealing a large white envelope taped to the bottom. He took it off and handed it to her.

She took it and peeked inside before she pulled out a stack of papers. "Last will and testament of Bradley and Dorothea Finnegan."

"Is that your parents?" Damon asked as they both sat down on the bed.

Katie nodded. "Being of sound mind and not under duress we hereby state that our daughter, Katie Scarlett Finnegan, be entrusted our estate when she becomes 18 years of age." She read then dropped the papers to rest in her lap.

"Your middle name is Scarlett?" he asked.

"Yeah, like Gone With the Wind Scarlett." She answered numbly then turned to him. "How can I tell if this is legit?" she asked finally turning her shocked eyes to him.

"Let me see." He took the papers from her and turned them over to see a notary stamp on the back of it. "It's legit." He handed them back to her and she put them back in the envelope. "When do you turn eighteen?"

"February seventeenth." She answered as she stood up and tucked the papers into her school bag. "After that I can kick my grandpa out of my house." She said with a smile. "I won't have to live with you and your brother anymore."

"What, you don't like my house?" he asked as he grabbed her hips and pulled her into him.

"I love staying with you, but I can't stay there forever." She sighed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "As much as I would like to."

"Well, like I said before, you're welcome to stay as long as you want." He told her then kissed her nose. "Come on let's get this over with." He said with a jerk of his head.

* * *

With her belongings around in her new room she was able to actually sleep in there alone, but she was woken up in the middle of the night to Damon sliding into her bed and snuggling into her back. "You're not the only one who's spoiled." He sighed before she fell back to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 11**

She woke up to Damon tickling her sides "You turned my alarm off again didn't you?" she groaned as she rolled over then pressed her lips to his. He hummed as positive answer and rolled on top of her. When he nibbled on her neck she tilted her head to the side. "You can if you want." Katie sighed as she slid her hands up his back and looped her arms around his gripping his shoulders.

Damon sighed and kissed her neck then nibbled on it. She thought he was going to bite her like she told him he could, but instead he started kissing her chest and looked into her eyes as he kissed down to her inner thigh. She watched as the whites of his eyes turned red and the veins under his eyes popped to the surface. A quiet whimper left her lips when he bit her and he slid his hand over hers, his way of telling her he was sorry that he hurt her.

Thirty minutes later Katie was getting dressed for school. "So Stefan has offered to help us open the tomb." He told her from where he laid on her bed with his hands behind his head and his feet crossed.

"I thought he was totally against you opening the tomb." She said as she pulled a black Linkin Park shirt over her head.

"Yeah, well, he'll do anything to get me out of town. Including letting Katherine out." Damon said with an eye roll as he sat up and spun to hang his feet off of the bed.

"And you believe him?" Katie asked as she walked over and grabbed her jeans off of the bed next to him.

"Nope, not for a second, but…" he stood up and watched her put on her pants, "I'm going to play along and let him think that I trust him."

"So I'm guessing that I need to play along as well?" she asked and he hummed a positive answer then picked her up and walked her over to the roll top desk that had taken the place of the nicer one that had been in the room, and set her down on it as he started kissing her. She sighed and wrapped her legs around him when he started kissing her neck. Once again those three little words made their way to the front of her mind and were on the tip of her tongue, but she bit her lips closed. Eventually he kissed his way to the other side of her neck and threaded his fingers through her loose waves. "Do you know how badly I want to ditch school and lock myself in here with you all day?"

"Mmhmm." He hummed then stopped kissing her and turned his back to her. "Hop on."

She rolled her eyes at him, but jumped on his back without question. He held her legs around him while she held on to his shoulders. "Where are we going?" she asked with a small laugh.

"Somewhere." He answered playfully as he left her bedroom.

When she realized where he was taking her she spoke up. "Why are you taking me to Stefan's room?" she asked as he came to Stefan's door at the top of the stairs.

"Because he and Elena are probably having as good of a morning as ours and I want to ruin it." he answered honestly. "Plus the four of us need to have a little chat. Now be a dear and open the door for me." Katie just laughed as she let go of his shoulders and opened the door. "Rise and shine sleepy heads." Damon chimed as he walked in and set Katie down on the floor.

"What are you doin'?" "Damon, please!" Stefan and Elena said at the same time.

"Katie, what are you doin' here?" Elena asked when she noticed Katie behind Damon.

"Has Stefan not told you that I live here now?" Katie asked with a tilt of her head and a look at Stefan.

"Not here in this house here. Here as in Stefan's bedroom." Elena cleared up as she pulled the white sheet higher up her body.

"Apparently the four of us need to talk so…" Katie answered with a shrug then motioned at Damon.

"Seriously, get out of here." Stefan told them.

"If I see something I haven't seen before, I'll throw a dollar at it." Damon said as he walked in and sat down on the bed beside where Stefan was laying. Elena raised her eyebrows at him and Katie snickered as she walked over and leaned against the foot board of the bed. "Now listen. We have some very important business to discuss."

"And it has to be right now?" Elena asked upset about them ruining their morning. Katie felt bad about it, but then she remembered the fight they'd had the other night and she no longer felt bad.

"Well, we have lots to do now that we're all friends and working toward a common goal." He said then stood up and wrapped his arm around Katie's waist. "So in order to open the tomb, we need to find the journal to get the grimoire to undo the spells. First thing first," he looked at Elena and pointed at her, "Since you are Elena _Gilbert_, you're on journal duty."

"Since when am I helping?" Elena asked as Katie watched Stefan resituate in the bed, the white sheet sliding down his nude torso.

"Well, Stefan's helping and since you've taken up residence in Stefan's bed, ergo…" Damon told them then looked at Katie to see her looking at Stefan. While Stefan was talking to Elena Damon snapped his fingers in Katie's face. When she gave him a frown he gave her a what-are-you-doing look. She just smirked and shook her head at him.

"I'll look for it today." Elena told Stefan then covered her head with the sheet.

"Thank you." Damon told her even though he couldn't see her.

"How do we know that this journal will hold the location of the grimoire?" Stefan asked. "We're really going to take the word of this vampire? He seemed like a bit of a dimwit."

"Do you have any better leads?" Katie asked earning a stay out of it look from Stefan and a smirk from Damon.

"Ok, what exactly is a grimoire, anyway?" Elena asked coming back out of the covers.

"It's a witch's cookbook." Damon answered.

"If Wikipedia is right it contains instructions on how they create talismans and how to perform spells and charms." Katie spoke up. "Basically it like the little recipe boxes that most moms put their super secret recipes in." Katie answered earning an impressed smirk from Damon.

"Every spell that a witch casts is unique unto itself. So every witch would document their work." Stefan answered in a less metaphorical way.

"Yeah, cookbook." Damon said brushing off how Stefan described it.

"What about our mystery vampire?" Stefan asked. "Dimwit obviously wasn't working alone. So whoever's out there knows who we are."

"And I don't like that disadvantage, so…" Damon clapped his hands, "Chop, chop." He turned his back to Katie and kneeled down with his arms out to the side for her to jump back onto his back. She smiled and jumped as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "You know, I really like this whole ménage-foursome team thing." He called as he walked to Stefan's door. "It's got a bit of a kink to it." he said then laughed, "don't screw it up." He sing songed then tickled Katie's leg making her yelp then laugh as he walked down the stairs.

After having a small breakfast Katie grabbed her bag and her phone, but couldn't find her keys. "Damon, do you have my keys?" she called as she headed into the living room to find him sitting on the couch with her keys dangling from his finger and a smirk on his face. She smirked deviously and tapped her chin in thought trying to come up with a way to get them from him. "Hmm." She hummed as she walked over, straddled his lap and pecked him on the lips then started kissing his neck. He sighed and placed his hands on her shoulder blades where she wouldn't be able to reach her keys. "Please give me my keys?" she begged quietly. He laughed breathily and shook his head no. "Give me my keys and I'll…" She leaned down and started whispering dirty things in his ear.

"Ooh, I like the sound of that." His husky voice that made her insides shiver. She smiled and held her hand out for her keys. "You are lucky I like you so much." He smiled and slapped the keys into her hand. "Especially considering you were totally checking out my brother earlier."

"I was looking at him yes, but if you could read my thoughts you would know I wasn't impressed." she told him honestly.

"I call bullshit." he told her with a rise and fall of his brows.

"You remember how I said too much muscle freaks me out?" she asked and Damon hummed. "Stefan freaks me out. His muscles are too bumpy and hard looking it kinda grosses me out if I'm being completely honest." she said as she pushed his hair back out of his face. "I'll always like you better." she whispered as she leaned down and started kissing him.

"Seriously guys, not on the couch." Stefan said as he and Elena walked in on them. Elena just stared at them with wide eyes never having seen her friend in such a position with a guy before.

Katie just laughed and slid back off of Damon to land on her feet and stood up. "Will I see you at the grill later?" Katie asked as she straightened her book bag on her shoulder and looked down at Damon.

"I'm probably still going to be busy looking for this stupid Gilbert journal." He sighed and stood up and followed her to the door. "Have a good day at school." He smiled and kissed her before he walked out of the door and shut it behind her.

Later that day Katie stood at the bar washing glasses and putting them away because Ben had decided to take the day off and go on a date with Bonnie. When she looked up from the sink she saw Ben and Bonnie walk in and sit down at a table in her section. So she pulled her note pad out and headed over to their table not bothering to grab menus since they both probably knew them by heart now. "What can I get you guys?" Katie asked as she walked over. They told her their drink orders and said they had already eaten and wouldn't be ordering food. She was giving them their drinks when Damon and Jeremy walked in. Damon sat at a table by himself and Jeremy met up with a girl she'd seen at the grill with him a few times. She pulled out her phone and texted Damon. "_What's up? I thought you were tracking down the journal._"

She saw him pull out his phone and text her back. "_I am. Jeremy's little girlfriend has it._" she read then looked at him one more time then got back to work to keep from distracting him. As soon as Jeremy and Anna left Damon did too. A few minutes later Katie was finishing up putting away the glasses when she looked up and saw Bonnie kiss Ben then pull back as if he had burned her. Bonnie looked at Katie and they frowned at each other. "_What's wrong?_" Katie mouthed but Bonnie turned back to Ben. She watched them until Bonnie stared toward the bathroom then took a quick turn for the doors.

Katie's eyes went wide when she saw Ben whoosh in front of Bonnie and put his hand over her mouth as he pulled her out of the grill. She stopped what she was doing and headed for the back exit, texting Damon as she walked. She was about to hit send as she opened the back door, but Ben came out of nowhere and hit her in the back of her head, making her world go black.

* * *

The sound of the bathroom door shutting woke Katie up. "Katie?" Elena asked and Katie opened her eyes with a groan as she grabbed the back of her head.

"Elena?" Katie asked as she looked around and saw Elena standing near the door and Bonnie still passed out in the bathtub. "Where are we?" she asked looking around the small, hotel looking bathroom. "God, Bonnie" Katie groaned and pointed at her witch friend. "Check on Bonnie."

Elena wet a rag and started pressing it to Bonnie's head. "Bonnie?" Elena asked when she saw Bonnie's eyes start to open.

"Elena?" Bonnie asked as Katie appeared behind her. "Katie?"

"You're okay." Elena calmed her.

"Ugh, my head…" Bonnie complained then realization hit. "Oh my god, Ben is a-"

"Sush." Elena cut her off, tapped her ear and pointed to the room. "They can hear."

Katie stood up, turned on the faucet then put the toilet seat down and sat down. "I was so stupid!" Bonnie whispered as she sat up.

"No, he had all of us fooled." Elena told her quietly.

"What's going on? Why are we all here?" Bonnie asked.

"My guess is it has something to do with Emily's grimoire. Anna had the Gilbert Journal so she wants that tomb open too. In order to do that they need a witch to do the reversal spell i.e. you." Katie explained as she closed her eyes in pain and pressed a hand to the back of her head.

"What?" Bonnie asked with a look between her friends. "Why didn't I know about any of this?"

"I don't know why Katie didn't say anything, but I was trying to keep you out of it, hoping it would never come to this." Elena answered not looking at Katie.

"Yeah I'm apparently slow, I didn't put two and two together until now. You're a descendant of the witch that put the spell on the tomb, it would make since that you'd be the one they want to break it." Katie said as she sat up and put her head in her hands.

"No way, I won't do it." Bonnie said with a shake of her head. Ben busted in making all of them jump. He turned the water off and glared at Bonnie. "You're wasting your time. I'm not gonna do it."

Ben just smiled and grabbed Elena and Katie, holding them by the backs of their shirts. "That's why they're here. Motivation for you to behave." Ben smiled at Bonnie. "You know, you shouldn't be so desperate. You made it too easy." Ben threw Katie to the side and opened the bathroom door. "She wants to talk to you." He pushed Elena out the door then shut it behind her staying in the bathroom with Katie and Bonnie.

After a while Anna knocked on the door and Ben grabbed the two girls by the arm. "Hey, I'm leaving. Keep them buttoned down." She told Ben then glared at him. "Compulsion won't work. Just use violence."

"Right, I got that." Ben told her aggravated then pushed Katie and Bonnie to sit on the bed next to the one Elena was sitting on. "Sit. Behave." Ben practically barked at them then looked at Bonnie. "So you're the key to this. Literally." He took his jacket off and put it on the back of the wooden chair that sat in the middle of the room. "Tell me, how long have you been a witch?" he asked Bonnie as he sat on the arm of the chair.

"Is there anything to drink here?" Elena asked taking the heat off of Bonnie.

"Are you offering?" he asked standing up to tower over her with a smile. "There's water on the night stand."

Elena grabbed the glass and was about to take a drink when Bonnie asked, "Hey. Can I have a sip?" Elena gave her a questioning look. Katie, who's face was hidden from Ben by her red waves, mouthed the word fire and Elena handed Bonnie the glass. Bonnie threw it on Ben and set it on fire. While he freaked out the three girls ran for the door.

Bonnie and Katie got out, Katie leading the way, but he got the fire out and grabbed Elena. "Come back in, shut the door!" he yelled.

Bonnie and Katie looked at each other before Katie looked at Ben. "Please, don't hurt her." Katie asked.

"Don't make me!" he yelled. Katie and Bonnie looked at each other to see what the other thought they should do. A part of Katie wanted to run and leave them behind, but another, much bigger, part knew that if she ran Ben would most likely hurt both of her friends and she couldn't let that happen. So she gave Bonnie a nod and they both went back inside. "Lock it!" Ben yelled so Katie turned her back on him and locked the dead bolt and the chain. Ben grabbed Bonnie and threw her into the bathroom.

Katie and Elena were sitting on separate beds when the door was kicked in by Stefan who threw the curtains open making Ben yell and dive for shade. "Stefan!" Elena yelled and ran to him while Katie ran to the bathroom and got Bonnie.

"Get outside." Stefan told them and Katie and Bonnie ran out of the door behind Elena.

Stefan said something that Katie couldn't make out to Ben then came back outside and they started walking. "How did you figure out where we were?" Katie asked running to catch up to Stefan's quick steps.

"Bonnie's grandma did a locater spell for me." He answered as they walked into the town square.

"Did Damon know where we were?" Katie asked wanting to know why it wasn't Damon who had just rescued her.

"He knew you were missing and he couldn't have cared less about finding you." Stefan answered uncaringly.

Katie walked quietly behind the rest of them with her arms crossed over her chest until they got to Bonnie's gram's house. "So what do we do now?" Elena asked as they walked into the dining room of Grams house.

"Well for now you need to stay here." Stefan answered.

"A prisoner, in my own home? I don't think so." Grams said from where she and Bonnie sat at the dining table while Katie, Elena and Stefan stood around them.

"I can't protect you if you leave the house." Stefan argued.

"We'll protect ourselves." Grams argued back.

"Katie, I know you've been helping him, but we need you to switch teams." He told her with his usual brooding face. "I know you think he cares about you but he doesn't. He's manipulating you."

"We need to let him have Katherine back." Elena interrupted getting confused looked from all of them. "He's not gonna stop until her gets her. If we help him, maybe that ends it."

"No. He doesn't deserve to get what he wants." Bonnie argued with a look over her shoulder at Elena. Katie bit her lips in order to keep herself from starting a fight.

"What other choice do we have?" Elena asked and Katie couldn't help but wonder why she was actually on Damon's side.

"Witches being pulled down by vampire problems… As much as we try to do to say out of it." Grams said with a mad look at all of them then turned her eyes to Stefan. "I'll open the tomb. You get your brothers girl and destroy the rest with fire. Then this will be all over."

"We still have to get Damon to agree." Stefan said with his arms crossed over his chest.

"He already agreed once." Elena pointed out.

"Yeah, and then we double crossed him." Stefan replied making Katie frown.

"How did you double cross him?" Katie asked making Stefan and Elena look at her.

"We found the grimoire, without him. He force fed me his blood and threatened to kill me in order to get it back." Elena told her with her snooty face on.

"So now he's angry." Stefan added with a shoulder shrug. "Katie, do you think you can get him to agree to our plan? He trusts you, he's said so himself." Stefan asked.

Katie sighed and placed her forearms on the table as she leaned down and rested her forehead on them. She didn't know what to do. It was a given that the vampires that were in that tomb needed to be killed. There were enough vampires in town as it was, but they were offering to get Katherine out first, the only reason Damon wants the tomb opened at all. She stood up and ran her hand through her hair pushing it out of her face. "How do I know that you're not lying to my face right now? How do I know that you aren't just saying all of this to use me to get him on board then when the time comes you kill Katherine too?" she asked.

"Katie we wouldn't do that to you." Elena stepped up trying to make Katie understand.

"You and Bonnie might not," she turned her green eyes to Stefan's, "but I don't trust you Stefan. I've heard too much from Damon about the kind of person you can be and I don't blame him for not trusting you."

"Katie, please, I am begging you. Help us and I promise we will let Katherine out." Elena put her hands on Katie's shoulder and gave her a light shake.

"Fine, okay? Fine." Katie brushed Elena hands off of her. "I'll go talk to him, but I'm not promising anything. Especially if he cares for me as little as Stefan says he does." Katie left them behind and walked to the grill where her car had been left.

She found Damon in the library of the boarding house. He grabbed his jacket off of the back of the chair and started to grab the grimoire when he spotted Katie standing in the doorway. "Hi." He told her with a smirk.

She crossed her arms over her chest and didn't smile back. "Did you know that Anna and Ben were holding me hostage?" she asked as she walked down the steps and into the library to stand across from him. He hummed a positive answer. "So you were just going to leave me there?"

"No, I was going to get you back tonight, after the tomb is opened." He told her as he set the grimoire down and placed his hands on her hips.

"So after you get your vampire girlfriend back?" she asked knowing that once he has Katherine back he'll no longer care about her."

"Yep." He answered popping the p at the end of the word.

"Right, well despite the face that you were going to leave me to be tortured all day, I convinced Bonnie to help you." she told him as she placed her hands on his chest. "The plan is: Open the door, break the seal, get Katherine out and torch the rest of them."

Damon pressed his forehead to hers and looked into her eyes. "Can I trust you?"

"You'll always be able to trust me, Damon. No matter what happens I'll always be on your side." She told him as she slid her hands up to rest on each side of his neck.

"Thank you." he whispered then pressed his lips to hers and what almost felt like a goodbye kiss.

"So tonight's the night huh?" she asked as she let go of him and picked up the grimoire.

"Yep." He answered and took the book from her when she held it out to him.

"Okay. Then let's get this over with." She grumbled and headed for the front door with Damon on his heels.

The car ride to the church was quiet so Katie started talking realizing that this might be the last time she was ever alone with him. "So I've been thinking." She started making him look across his shoulder at her. "I'm going into the tomb with you and I'll give Katherine my blood.

"I don't think that's a good idea." He argued.

"I know you grabbed a blood bag, but wouldn't it be better for her to have the fresh stuff?" she asked and he couldn't understand how even though she loved him she was still trying to do right by the other woman.

"Katie I really don't think you should go in there. There are going to be ugly desiccated vampires everywhere."

"Like it or not I'm with you until you're with her." she told him stubbornly.

He smiled and rested his hand on the back of her neck, rubbing it with his thumb lovingly. "I love" he almost said you, but he paused.

"If you want to say it just say it." she told him without looking at him.

"You sure?" he asked with a glance over at her.

"Yeah, tonight's going to hurt regardless. I might as well know how you really feel before it's over. Stefan seems to think it's all been an act to manipulate me into helping you and having sex with you. I want to know the truth." She told him still not looking at him.

"Katie look at me." He told her, but she couldn't make herself do it. He pulled the car over and stopped. "Look at me Katie Cat." She finally looked at him fighting hard to keep the tears from her eyes. "I love you." he told her looking her in the eyes as he cupped her face in his hands. "I'm I am so sorry I've done this to you. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Then don't." her words came out broken as a tears slipped down her cheek. "Leave her in there and live the rest of my life with me."

Damon squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to hers. "I can't do that. You deserve so much better than any life I could ever give you. You're supposed to become a doctor and have kids and all the things come with being a human."

"I don't want any of that." Katie argued.

"That's a lie and you know it." he told her as he let go of her face and pulled back out onto the road. "I owe it to her to get her out of there." He told Katie in a firm voice that let her know their moment was over and there was nothing she could do to keep tonight from happening.

When they pulled up near the church Katie saw that there were a bunch of cars around and when they got out of the car they could hear music. Of course a party would be going on tonight of all nights. They ran into Caroline and Matt on their way to the church, but Caroline could tell that Katie wasn't in a good mood and kept the conversation short.

Damon whistled when they got within earshot of the church. "Brother." He greeted Stefan. "Witches." Damon walked past them.

Stefan turned to Katie. "Everything okay?"

"Peachy." Katie popped off with a sarcastic smile. Then headed down into the tomb herself.

Not long after, Bonnie, Grams, Elena and Stefan joined them. "Air, earth, fire." Grams said as she lit three torches.

"Water." Bonnie added as she held up a bottle of water and handed it to her grams.

"That's it, just water from the tap?" Elena asked.

"As opposed to what?" Grams asked.

"I just figured maybe it would have to be blessed or mystical or something." Elena answered earning a smile from the older woman.

It was quiet as they all watched Grams and Bonnie getting ready. Damon walked over and stood behind Katie wrapping his arms around her shoulders as he leaned over to Stefan and said, "Admit it, you can't wait to get rid of me."

Stefan gave him a small smile and a head shake. "I can't wait to get rid of you."

Damon hummed and leaned around Katie and pecked her on the cheek. "We're ready." Bonnie told them from where he and Grams stood in the middle of their circle. The two of them joined hands and started speaking an old sounding language. After a few minutes the flames of the torches spiked and the stone door that Damon and Katie stood in front of opened. "It worked."

"Of course it worked." Grams replied to her granddaughter not looking at her but at the door.

"I'm gonna go get the gasoline, I'll be right back." Stefan told Elena then headed up the stairs.

"You ready?" Damon asked as he held his hand out for Katie's.

"Yep." Katie smacked her hand into his.

"What?" Bonnie asked with a confused look between Damon and her friend.

"Did you really think I was going to go in there by myself so you can seal me in?" he asked and Bonnie looked at Katie as if she had betrayed her.

"That wasn't part of the plan." Grams told Katie with a look that told her not to go in.

"It's part of my plan and it looks like I was right not to trust you guys." She looked up at Damon and jerked her head to the open stone door.

"Don't take her in. I'll bring the walls down." Grams warned him.

"You'll bring the walls down if I don't. You think I trust you?" Damon asked.

"Only as much as I trust you." Grams popped off.

"Enough!" Katie stopped them. "Both of you. We're going inside and I'd really like it if we both survived it. We stick to the original plan and everyone wins." Katie told them then disappeared behind the door, dragging Damon in behind her. They wandered the dark tombs. She had a flashlight and him a torch, but he let go of her hand and left her behind. "Damon?" she called as she slowly navigated the tomb, trying not to trip over desiccated vampires. "Damon?"

Someone grabbed her from behind and she screamed as she was turned around and her flashlight landed on Anna's face. "You really are stupid enough to do anything for him aren't you?" Anna asked her and Katie took a step back from her only to stumble over someone's leg. "Mother?" Katie shined her light on a vampire woman who was leaning against the stone wall. "Mother." Ana rubbed her shoulder then turned to Katie. "Your boyfriend did this you know."

"His father did this not Damon." Katie argued. "But I'll help her if you'll let me." Katie pulled a small pocket knife out of her back pocket and opened it.

"Why would you help me?" Anna asked from where he kneeled next to her mom. "What's the catch?"

"Because I'd do anything to get my mother back." Katie answered. "The only thing I ask is that she doesn't drink me dry and you don't tell anyone that it was my blood that got her out of here."

"Okay, we have a deal." Anna nodded so Katie kneeled down, wrapped her hand around the blade of the knife and quickly pulled the edge across her palm. Anna's mom started stirring as the scent of Katie's blood.

Katie cupped her hand and held it up to the woman's mouth that opened wider as her blood slipped between her lips. "Come on, Anna's mom, drink up." Katie told the woman not knowing her name.

"Her name is pearl." Anna told her.

Katie nodded then looked up when Stefan appeared, "Katie, I heard you scream." He told her then realized what she was doing. "What are you doing?" he asked with frown.

"Being cooperative." Katie replied and wiggled her fingers in an attempt to get more blood flowing and Pearl closed her mouth over the cut, the color flooded back to the woman's skin. So Katie pulled her hand back. "If that's not enough to get her out of here I'm sorry. I have to find Damon and Katherine." Katie told Anna and stood up, pressing the bottom of her shirt to her hand.

"Thank you." Anna told her then turned to her mother who said her name.

"Get out of here, Katie, I'll find Damon." Stefan told her and put his hand on her shoulder to push her out of the tomb, but Katie pulled back.

"I told Damon I would be with him till the end of us an I meant it. You go if you want, but I'm finding him." She turned from him and ventured further into the tomb not paying attention to where he went.

"Katie, Damon and I aren't coming out." Stefan told her looking sad. "Bonnie and her grandma didn't break the seal, they just opened the door."

"Does Elena know you're trapped in here?" Katie asked with creased brows.

Stefan nodded. "I heard you scream. I had to make sure you were safe." he answered and Katie looked at him realizing that maybe he cared about her more than he let on. "Let's go find Damon. They're working on breaking the seal, but it won't last long." He placed his hand on her back and they started walking the tunnel until they found Damon.

"Damon?" Katie asked seeing him kick the wall in frustration.

"She's not here." She told her walking the room like a trapped tiger.

"What?" Stefan asked, pushing Katie behind him.

"She's not here!" Damon yelled and threw the blood bag he had been planning on giving Katherine against the wall causing blood to splatter everywhere.

"Damon we need to get out of here." Stefan told him.

"It doesn't make sense. They locked her inside." He said more to himself than Katie and Stefan.

"If we don't leave now, we're not getting out." Stefan tried to get through to Damon, but he wasn't listening.

"How could she not be in here?" he asked still pacing the room.

"It's not worth spending all of eternity down here!" Stefan yelled at him. "She's not worth it!"

"No!" Damon shoved Stefan.

"Damon!" Katie finally untied her tongue getting Damon's attention. "I can't lose you. Please." She held her hand out to him.

He shrugged his jacket sleeve that had slipped off of his shoulder during his rampage back on and walked past her, not taking her hand. She and Stefan followed him out of the tomb. The door slammed shut behind them and Elena threw herself into Stefan's arms as soon as she could. Elena and Stefan ran up the stirs to outside where Jeremy was lying on the ground knocked out while Katie followed Damon up the stairs. Elena walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist before Katie had the chance to. "I'm sorry." She told him while Stefan and Katie just watched the weird exchange.

When Elena let him go Katie walked over and got his attention. "Come on, I'll drive you home." He shook his head no but handed her his keys.

"Take my car home." He told her numbly and she just nodded.

She drove Damon's car to the boarding house and left his keys in the seat then got into her car and headed to Bonnie's grams house. As she let herself in side she heard Bonnie crying and Elena talking rushed and tensely to someone on the phone. Katie followed their voices to Grams bedroom to see Bonnie crying hysterically holding her grandmothers hand. As Katie looked at the older woman she realized she wasn't breathing and tears started slipping down her cheeks. "Oh my god, Bonnie." Bonnie looked over her shoulder at Katie who fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around her friend. Elena hung up the phone and joined them in their group hug.

It was two in the morning when the ambulance drove away with Gram's, who had been pronounced dead at the scene, in the back. The three girls stood on the porch as it drove away. "Do you want us to stay with you?" Katie asked from where she stood beside her friend.

"No, I really need to be by myself right now." Bonnie said with a shake of her head and Katie looked at Elena to see what she thought about it.

Elena nodded. "Okay, well, don't be afraid to call one of us if you change your mind." She told her.

"Or both of us, we won't care." Katie added as she walked down the porch steps.

"Thank you guys." Bonnie told them then went back inside.

"You think she'll be okay?" Katie asked as she wiped her stuffy, sore nose with a tissue.

"Not for a long time." Elena said as she walked past her.

* * *

Katie walked into the boarding house and was greeted by Stefan. "Hey, I heard about grams. You okay?" he asked as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Not really." Katie answered as she walked past him.

"Well, you know where my rooms at if you ever need to talk about…anything." He told her as he moved up to walk beside her. "Just…knock, next time." He told her referring to how she and Damon burst in this morning.

"You got it." she told him as he parted ways, him headed to his room while she headed to the living room where she found Damon with a glass of bourbon in his hand as he stared at the fire in the fire place.

"So Katherine's alive." He told her where she stood between the couches that sat on either side of the fireplace.

"What?" Katie asked with a creased brow.

"Yep. She has been this whole time." He told her. "Apparently she was in Chicago in 1983." He said as he stood up and finally looked at her.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Katherine didn't give a shit about Damon. "I'm so sorry." Katie's hand fisted her necklace.

Damon downed the bourbon then went to the set of crystal on a table that set behind one of the couches and refilled the glass. "You're welcome to keep staying here, but we're over."

"What?" Katie asked, staring at him with wide, shocked eyes as her heart leapt into her throat.

"You heard me." He said as he grabbed his glass and walked over to her. "We're done, just like we planned all along."

"The plan was for you to be with Katherine and that didn't happen. So no, were not over." Katie argued.

"Yes we are!" Damon yelled and threw the glass against the wall then whooshed over pinning her to the wall with her hands in his on each side of her head. "Get this through your thick little skull. I...don't...want you."

"Damon." Stefan's voice pulled Katie's eyes to him where he stood behind Damon at the end of one of the couches. "Let her go."

She turned her eyes back to Damon and leaned as far forward as she could to get in his face. "And you get this through yours. I…_love_…you." she glared into his eyes that kept glaring into hers. "I love you more than I've _ever_ loved _anyone_." The only thing keeping her from crying was her anger. "But you should know, if you push me away right now, I will not come back to you. No matter how much you beg me, how much you say you miss me it will…not…work. So think long and hard about what you're doing right now." She leaned her head back against the wall and stayed quiet for what felt like forever, glaring at him, giving him time to think, before she said, "Simple question. Simple yes or no answer, are we really over?"

Damon leaned down to get in her face and said, "Yes" then let go of her hands and backed up not breaking eye contact with her. She moved around him and gave Stefan a nod of thanks then went to her room.

That night she cried herself to sleep feeling more alone than she had in a very long time.

* * *

The next few days seemed to be a messy blur of helping Bonnie with her grams funeral, and Damon dragging multiple women to the house and partying with them at all hours of the day and night.

After Grams funeral Katie came home to see Damon with a blond on his lap as he drank from her neck. As always the sight sent a dagger through her chest and she had to bite back her tears. "Katie!" Damon called her name in a cheery voice seeing her watching him from the entry way. He pushed the girl to the side and walked over to her. "You look hot in black. Who are you all dressed up for?"

She just looked up at him with eyes that were red from crying and put her hand on the table to her right that had shards of broken glass that used to be a vase on it. She didn't know what happened and she didn't really care. "Gram's funeral." She answered coldly as she discreetly inched a piece of the glass into her hand.

"You should join us, have some fun." He suggested with a smile, his face smudged with the woman's blood, as he put his hand on the table next to hers.

Katie smiled back then let the smile turn to a sneer as she slammed the glass into the back of his hand. His face didn't show the slightest hit of pain. "Fuck you, Damon."

That night, after she had changed out of the black lace funeral dress, showered and made sure her school work was in order for Monday, she heard a knock on her door. She closed her journal and walked over to the door, but paused when her hand grabbed the knob. "Who it is?" She asked suspiciously.

"It's just me, Stefan." She heard from the other side so she pulled the door open.

"Hi." She said with a forced smile. Real ones didn't come easily anymore. She left the door open and sat down in the center of her bed.

"I know Elena's a mess, but how are you?" He asked as he moved her desk chair over to the foot of the bed and set down.

"Oh I'm walking on freaking sunshine." She quipped as she moved around to sit cross legged. Stefan smiled at her sarcasm. "Every time I walk in and see Damon with some compelled slut in his lap it's just another ray that gets added." She said as she turned her eyes to her hands as she picked at her cuticles.

"I wasn't just saying it to be nice when I told I was here if you ever needed to talk." Stefan told her as he leaned forward putting his elbows on his knees. "I want us to be friends, Katie."

"The last guy that told me he wanted to be my friend ripped my heart out and keeps repeatedly stabbing it." Katie replied looking up from her hands in her lap to seeing him looking at her with an extra crease in his always brooding brow. "You want to know how I'm doing?" She asked turning her eyes back down to her hands. "Three months ago I lived with someone who would randomly beat me for shit that I didn't do. Now I live with someone who hurts me every time I walk through the door."

"I'm sorry." She could tell when she looked at his green eyes that he meant it.

"When we were packing my stuff Damon found my parents will, hidden in my father's old desk. According to it my parent's house becomes mine when I turn eighteen." Katie hadn't told anyone about her parents will. There hadn't been a good opportunity. "So I'll only be here until February. After that I'll kick my grandfather out, get my house back and be out of your hair."

"You're not in my hair." He told her with a shake of his head. "You know I was the one that suggested that you stay here, right?" he asked.

Katie gave him a suspicious side look. "Really?"

"Why is that so hard to believe?" he asked. "You need a room, we have plenty." He said with a motion around him.

"I guess I can believe it." She said as she looked down and started picking fuzz from her conforter. "I mean you did run into a tomb that you didn't know if you could get out of just to save me." She pointed out. "Thank you by the way."

"How's your hand?" he asked with a nod toward her left hand.

She held it up showing him the two inch slash mark that had scabbed over. "It's healing."

"You will too, you know. It's just going to take time." He told her.

"Yeah, but I cut this one earlier when I stabbed Damon with a piece of broken glass." She said as she held up her right hand. "How's that for an analogy?" she asked as she let it fall to her lap and he just shook his head.

"First loves always hurt the worst." He told her as he leaned back in the chair.

"Who said he was my first love?" she asked and he just rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, okay, I guess it was obvious." She said with a roll of her own eyes.

"Okay, I may be a vampire, but I still need sleep." He said with a sigh as he stood up and walked over to her door. "Goodnight Katie."

"Night." She called as he walked out and shut the door behind him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 12**

Over the next three weeks Katie kept her head down and focused on work and school. To keep her hands even more occupied she bought a guitar and started teaching herself how to play. She didn't get to spend much time with her friends because Bonnie was still at her aunt's house, Elena was wrapped up in Stefan and Caroline was wrapped up in Matt.

She was working after school and was picking up the tip that Tyler had left behind on her table when Matt walked up to clear it. "Is it just me or has he been coming here a lot more than usual?" she asked him.

"Yeah and he's tipping you more than the other girls." Matt said as she split the money then handed him his half. "I think someone has a crush."

"Is Tyler Lockwood even capable of crushing on someone?" Katie asked with an eye roll.

"I don't know, but he's only human so...maybe." he said with a shrug then started clearing the table.

Katie brushed the conversation off and got back to work.

The next day Katie was working after school when Tyler came in and sat down in her section. So she grabbed her notepad and pen and walked over. Seeing Damon sitting at the bar Katie made her voice sound more cheerful. "Hey, Tyler, what can I get you?" She asked with a small smile.

"A coke and some curly fries." He told her with a smile back.

"Alright. I'll put that order in and be right back with your drink." She told him then walked to the bar finding the ice scoop and coke sprayer to be faster than the soda machine in the back.

"You're not seriously flirting with the dimwit football player are you?" Damon asked, clearly having been listening.

"Screw you, Damon." She told him then turned to see the order of curly fries be slid into the order window. She carried them and the drink over to Tyler and set them down in front of him. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"Your phone number." He said with his jockish smirk.

Katie gave him a questioning side eye. "Did you seriously just ask for my number?"

"Yes. I seriously just asked for your number."

She pursed her lips to the side as she thought about it. "Okay." She bit her lip and smiled at him as she pulled her note pad out of her apron pocket and wrote her number down. She tore the paper out, put it on the table then slid it to him.

"I'm kind of surprised that worked." He told her with a suspicious smile. "You gave me a fake number didn't you?"

"There's only one way to find out." She told him with a playful smile then got back to work.

That night she got a text from an unknown number. "I swear if this is a fake number..."

"Hi, Tyler." She texted back.

"Well what do you know. Katie Finnegan actually gave me her number." After she got the text her phone started ringing so she answered it.

"Hi."

"Hey." He answered back a little awkwardly.

"Why wouldn't I give you my number?" She asked as she walked over to her bed and sat down on it cross legged.

"I don't know. You've been kind of…off, here lately." he answered. "You don't smile anymore."

Kate made sure her hair looked okay and her glasses were straight then snapped a pic of herself with a too big, cheesy smile on her face. She typed "I do too." then hit send.

She heard a noise on the other end of the line as Tyler opened the message then laughed. "I've known you long enough to know that smile is fake." He replied.

"Eh, well, I tried." Katie replied.

"So I heard you and Damon broke up."

"Yep." She answered.

"I also heard you're living with him and Stefan."

"My grandpa kicked me out. I had no where else to go." She replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Must be a pain in the ass living with your ex." He commented.

"Pain in the ass isn't a strong enough expression." She replied as she fell back putting her head on her pillow.

"What would you say if I asked you out?" He asked making Katie's heart jump up into her throat.

"Um that depends, are you asking me out?" She asked avoiding his question.

"Yes." He answered not missing a beat.

"How's your mom going to feel about you goin' out a piece of trash like me?" She asked remembering what his mother had said when she had given him a ride home.

"You heard that huh?" He asked and she could hear a hint of how bad he felt about it in his voice.

"Yeah she wasn't exactly quiet about it." Katie answered trying to keep how much she hated his parents out of her voice.

"Sorry." He told her sounding like he didn't say the word much to other people who weren't his dad.

"You don't have to apologize. You didn't say it." She told him.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." He told her and things got quiet for a few seconds so to break the silence he asked, "So what are you wearing?"

Katie actually laughed. "You did not just ask me that."

"I did." She could hear a smile in his voice. "Am I gonna get an answer?"

"Only if you answer first." She told him with a smile still in her voice.

"Just some grey lounge pants." He answered and Katie instantly pictured him shirtless. It wasn't like she hadn't seen him shirtless before. Tyler was proud of his body and had no problem showing it off. But it was the first time she gave how hot he was more than a fleeting thought and actually found herself attracted to him. "You're picturing me shirtless aren't you?" He asked when she didn't say anything.

"No." Katie drawled sounding a little embarrassed. "Why would I do that? You're repulsive." She joked to smooth over how obvious she had been.

"Uh huh, sure." She could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "So..." he drawled, "What are you wearing?"

Katie looked down at her red sweat pants and overly worn t shirt with a faded band logo on the front. "My red cheer shorts and a black spaghetti strap tanktop." She lied but used clothes from her wardrobe to do so.

"The ones you wear to practice all the time?" He asked and Katie blushed as she hummed a positive answer. "Nice."

"I wasn't aware you even noticed me at practice." She replied without thinking.

"You really don't see it do you?" He asked.

"See what?" She asked completely oblivious.

"Practically the whole football team has had the hots for you since you joined the cheer squad." He explained and Katie felt like her head was going to explode. "I mean we've all whistled at you one point or another."

"I always thought y'all were whistling at the squad as a whole." She replied as she rolled over and sat up.

"If you paid attention you would've realized that we were looking at you." He answered.

Katie's stomach growled making her realize that she hadn't had dinner. "Okay if that's true then why are you the only one that's asked me out?" She asked as she headed down stairs to the kitchen.

"We all assumed you were a lesbian." He answered.

"Seriously? A girl doesn't flirt back so guys automatically think she's just not into them?" She asked as she walked into the kitchen and saw Damon getting a bag of blood out of the fridge.

She hadn't been shopping and knew that there wouldn't be anything in the icebox for her. So she pulled a cup of noodles out of the cabinet next to the fridge. "Yeah." He answered as if it were the obvious one. "But then you showed up at my house with that Damon guy and proved us wrong."

"That Damon guy, seriously?" Damon asked loud enough from Tyler to hear.

"Is he there right now?" Tyler asked.

"I had to leave the solitude of my room to find food." She answered as she put a pot of water on the stove to boil.

"Do you have me on speaker?" He asked curious as to how Damon could hear him.

"No. He just has really good hearing." She said then pulled herself up to sit on the kitchen counter. She glared at Damon as she kept talking to Tyler. "So I'll ask again. Why are you the only one that's asked me out?"

"I think I'm the only one who noticed you and Damon broke up." He answered.

"I broke up with her." Damon chimed in.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" she popped off at Damon not caring if Tyler heard. "Or sorority girls to exploit?"

"Nope." He answered with a smart ass smile.

She shot him the finger. "Do I need to call you back later?" Tyler asked as the water in the pot started boiling.

"Nope." Katie answered as she peeled back the seal on the cup and poured the water in to the fill line. "I'm going to eat in my bedroom." She grabbed a fork out of the drawer and closed it with her hip as she held the phone with her shoulder and the cup in both hands to keep from spilling hot water on herself. "Okay I'm back in my room. No more interruptions." She sighed as she kicked the door closed behind her and set the cup of noodles on top of her dresser.

"Right, so are you going anywhere for Christmas break?" He asked knowing that tomorrow was the last day of school before the two week break.

"Nope. My schedule is wide open other than the winter festival that the gang usually drags me to." She told him as she waited for her noodles to be ready.

"You wanna get some dinner and catch a movie this weekend?" He asked making Katie realize that she'd never been on an actual date before.

"Sounds fun." She told him feeling nervous.

"Alright, cool." She smiled at the smile she could hear in Tyler's voice. "Well it's getting late. I'll see you tomorrow?" She hummed a positive answer. "G'night."

"Night." She replied then hung up.

She was in the kitchen when Stefan walked in wearing a pair of black pajama pants. "Hey." He greeted her where she stood with her back turned to him washing her dishes.

"Oh, hey." She replied with a look over her shoulder at him.

"Did I hear you talking to Tyler Lockwood earlier?" He asked as he grabbed a glass out of the cabinet.

"Is privacy not a thing when you live with vampires?" She asked as she put the pot and fork in the draining board and turned to see him making a glass of ice water.

"Sorry." He said with a tight lipped smile even though he wasn't really sorry. "Isn't he kind of a hot head?"

"Yeah." Katie answered as she leaned her hips against the cabinet. "But I broke my grandfather's nose and stabbed Damon in the hand. So who am I to judge?"

"Point taken." He replied then took a drink of his water. "I just don't want you to rush into anything just because you want to get over Damon."

"I appreciate your concern, but if I'm being honest I've kind of had a small crush on Tyler since, like, junior high. So I kind of feel like it'd be a missed opportunity if I turn him down." She admitted as she walked over to the island that he was standing on the other side of. "Is that stupid?" She asked sheepishly.

"Nope. It makes total sense." He told her with a shake of his head then finished off his water and set the glass in the sink. "Goodnight." Katie hummed back at him.

* * *

Katie and Tyler were standing at her locker after school when Caroline and Bonnie came over. "Hey, are you going to help us set up for the festival?" Caroline asked Katie with a smile.

"Hey, you're back." She greeted Bonnie with a hug.

"Just for the winter festival then it's back to my aunts." She said as Katie let her go.

"Well, I'm glad your here. Christmas would suck if we weren't all together." She told Bonnie then looked at Caroline. "Yes, I will help with the festival." She then looked at Tyler.

His eyes got big and he held up his hands. "No. You're not roping me into helping."

"Awe come on you don't want to string up popcorn with me?" Katie asked with a laugh. "I usually end up eating half of it anyway."

"No eating the popcorn." Caroline scolded pointing at both of them.

"Yeah I'm gonna pass." Tyler told her with a no nonsense face. "I will see you later though." He gave her a quick smile then left the group of girls.

"So what's up with you two?" Caroline asked.

"We're… going out." Katie answered watching him walk out the double doors at the end of the hallway as they followed slower behind him.

"What?" Bonnie asked. "When did that happen and why didn't you tell us?"

"When did you and Damon break up?" Caroline asked looking at her across Bonnie.

"Damon dumped me two weeks ago. I assumed Elena or Bonnie told you." Katie answered Caroline first. "Tyler called last night and asked me out. So I haven't had a chance to tell you guys."

"How'd he even get your number?" Bonnie asked curiously.

"He asked me for it." She answered with a shrug.

"Is Tyler even your type?" Caroline asked as they pushed the doors open and headed out into the cool air.

"I don't think I really have a type." Katie answered.

"So are you guys going on a date or something?" Bonnie asked as they walked up to the table that held two bowls of popcorn, string and needles.

"Yeah. Dinner and a movie this weekend." Katie answered.

"That's predictable." Caroline laughed.

"After being with Damon, predictable sounds nice." Katie argued and Bonnie made a face that said she understood.

Hours later after the festival started Elena, Stefan, Caroline, Matt, Katie and Bonnie all gathered around one of the picnic tables. "Nobody open their gift until every one has exchanged. Okay first off who picked who?" Caroline, who had arranged everything, ran the show.

"I got Stefan." Elena started and handed him his gift.

"I got Caroline." Stefan said as he handed Caroline her gift.

"And I got Bonnie." Caroline said with a cheery smile. "That means Matt and Katie got each other." Caroline finished and Matte and Katie switched gifts. "Okay open."

Katie was surprised when she unwrapped a silver jewelry box and opened it to find a black leather wrap bracelet with silver letters on it that spelled out her name. "Thanks, Matt, I really like it."

"Thank Caroline. I had no clue what to get you." He told her with an ashamed look then started unwrapping his gift.

"I kind of had no clue what to get you either." Katie said as he tore the paper off of the Nerf football. "Figured I couldn't go wrong with a football."

"You figured right." He said with a laugh then tore the cardboard packaging off of it and started tossing it in the air.

"Boys are so easily amused." Caroline said with an eye roll as she walked up.

"Thank you for the bracelet." Katie told her with a hug.

"He wasn't supposed to tell you." Caroline complained. Katie just laughed and shook her head. "He wanted to buy you a cheap bath set."

"I would've been fine with that." Katie shrugged.

"Even if it smelled like old feet and flowers?" Caroline asked with a grossed out look.

"Ew, no. Thank you for saving me from that disaster." Katie thanked her again. "What did you get from Stefan?"

Caroline pouted and held up her hand and the mini snow glob of Mystic Falls that dangled off the key ring on her finger. "We're not including the boys in secret Santa next year."

Katie just laughed at the pathetic excuse of a Christmas gift. "Hey, Tyler, catch!" She heard Matt say and she looked up in time to see Tyler catch the ball.

"You're man is here." Caroline smiled and bumped Katie's shoulder with hers then walked over to Matt.

"What is she talking about?" Elena asked with a look between the blushing Katie and Caroline.

"Katie and Tyler are going out now." Stefan answered for her.

"You knew?" Elena asked with a look up at Stefan who was hugging her from behind.

"We live in the same house and I have good hearing." Stefan pointed out.

"Wait you live with the Salvatore's now?" Caroline asked turning away from Matt who took the football from Tyler. Katie just nodded. "Why?"

"My grandpa kicked me out." Katie answered with a shrug as she took the jewelry box out of her pocket and opened it.

"Why?" Caroline asked not letting the subject drop.

Katie didn't look at her and instead focused on putting on her new bracelet. "Can we talk about this later?"

"No, why do I feel like I missing something?" She asked getting mad as she looked around at her friends who were giving her warning looks.

Katie looked around at all the people. "Okay," she sighed and walked over to Caroline and grabbed her hand, pulling her out of earshot of her friends. "I've been trying to find the right time to tell you this, but you're always so cheerful I didn't want to bring you down with sad stuff."

"What are you talking about?" Caroline asked quietly. Her super sweet voice making it harder on Katie. They came to a stop on the sidewalk.

"For the last seven years, up until I started dating Damon, my grandfather abused me. Physically and emotionally." Katie put it all out on the table.

"You're not really clumsy are you?" She asked, the light bulb going off in her head. Katie shook her head. "Oh my god, I should've realized..."

"I was really good at hiding it." Katie shrugged. "Damon caught Grandpa in the middle of beating me and stood up to him. He stopped physically hurting me, but not emotionally." Katie explained while Caroline stared at her with a furrowed brow. "I spent the night at the boarding house for a couple of nights and when I came home and told Grandpa where I had been he accused me of sleeping with both of the Salvatore brothers. I saw red and broke his nose. He kicked me out and Damon and Stefan offered me a room at the boarding house."

"I am so sorry." Caroline said with a shake of her head.

"No I'm sorry. I should've told you about all this sooner." Katie argued. "Are you mad at me?"

"No." Caroline said with a shake of her head.

"Hey," Tyler called as he ran over to them. "I hate to interrupt, but they're about to light the tree."

"Oh, we can't miss it." Caroline perked up and headed over to the big tree that was set up in the middle of the decorated parking lot.

"You okay?" Tyler asked with a curious head tilt.

"Yeah I'm good." Katie answered.

"I got you hot coco." He said as he held up a to-go coffee cup.

Katie tried not to cringe at the thought of drinking hot chocolate, but she managed a small smile as she took the cup from him. "Thanks."

They all stood amongst the crowd as Sheriff Forbs gave a speech. Katie noticed Elena standing next to Stefan, leaning into his side while he had his arm wrapped around her side and Matt hugging Caroline from behind. When she looked across her shoulder at Tyler he rolled his eyes with a smile and put his arm around her shoulders.

"You don't have to just because they are." Katie told him considering she had never seen Tyler be lovey dovey with Vicki. He was handsy, but he never came off as the type to hold hands.

"I want to." He told her with a look that suggested she was being ridicules.

"Okay." Katie answered skeptically.

"You don't believe me?" He asked with raise brows.

"You never really came off as the romantic, hand holding type." Katie shrugged.

"I'm not." He shrugged. "But that doesn't mean I don't want to be."

"Okay." She told him with a small smile.

The tree being lit caught their attention so they both watched as the lights came on going up the tall decorated tree. When it was completely lit everyone started cheering and clapping. Katie just smiled.

* * *

Katie kept her outfit for her date with Tyler simple and wore a plain white t-shirt, dark wash skinny jeans, black wedge heeled ankle boots and her black leather jacket. She was sitting on her bed putting on her boots when Damon walked up and leaned against her door frame with a bottle of alcohol in his hand. "Your boyfriend's here."

She looked at her watch to see that it was twenty till five. "He's early."

"I was talking about me." He told her with a smirk. Katie rolled here eyes and went to her bathroom to put the finishing touches on her eye makeup. "You're seriously going on a date with that guy?" He asked as he stumbled into the bathroom and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"That guy has a name and yes I am." She answered as she finished lining her eyes.

"He's a stupid jock." He told her with scoff.

She turned around in his arms and took them off of her. "I'll take a hot jock over a murderous ass hole any day." She walked around him to her room.

"A murderous asshole that you love." He pointed out and she turned to see him standing in the middle of her room.

"Yeah and what did you do with my love Damon?" Katie asked as she walked over and grabbed the bottle out of his hand. "You flushed it down the toilet like you do everything else good in your life." She took a swig of whatever dark liquid was in the bottle.

"I miss you Katie." He said giving her his sad eyes. A big part of her wanted to give in to them, but another part of her just as big and more logical told her that she couldn't stay on the emotional rollercoaster that was Damon Salvatore.

"You miss me?" She asked with pissed off wide eyes. "That's why you keep dragging whole sorority houses of girls here and partying all night?" She asked and he just blinked at her. "I told you if you pushed me away I wouldn't come back and you pushed anyway." She told him with an exhausted shake of her head. "You know, Elena once told me I was like a fish on a hook that you kept throwing out then reeling back in..." she took another drink of the alcohol then slammed the bottle into his chest. "I'm cutting the line."

"It's that simple for you to give up on us?" He asked and she was pretty sure she saw tears welling in his eyes.

"Simple?" She scoffed with a sarcastic laugh. "There is nothing simple about this. A part of me will always love you, but I can't keep letting you push me away then pull me back in. It's not right and it's eventually going to rip me apart. It's not fair for you to expect me to be happy with only half your heart." She watched him take a drink from the bottle. "So I'm going out with Tyler and if, slash when, he kisses me I won't feel guilty. Hell, I might even sleep with him on the first date, who knows."

She was halfway down the stairs when she heard glass shattering. She flinched as she stopped and looked back, fighting the urge to go to him. "Katie." She looked to the bottom of the stairs to see Stefan looking at her with sympathetic eyes. "Tyler's waiting for you in the living room."

"Did I just make a big mistake, not going back to him?" Katie whispered as quietly as she could.

"No." Stefan told her with pursed lips and a shake of his head. "I don't think so."

Katie walked down the stairs and stopped in front of Stefan. "How am I supposed to get through tonight after that?" Katie asked.

"Easy." He said as he grabbed her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "Take a deep breath." She did as she was told. "Let it out." When she did Stefan made a face. "Now just remember to relax and smile, but first go brush your teeth." He let go of her shoulders. "You reek of alcohol and no one wants to kiss that on their first date."

Katie let out a tense laugh. "Will you let Tyler know I'll be down in a few?" She asked and he nodded so she turned around and went back to her room. Damon was still standing where she had left him. They ignored each other as she went to her bathroom, brushed her teeth then headed out of her room, but she stopped when she saw the broken glass and alcohol all over the floor. "Please clean that up before I get back?" She said not looking at Damon then walked out.

When she got to the living room she saw Tyler talking to Stefan and when Tyler saw her he gave her smile. She smiled back at him where he stood with his hands in his pockets. "You ready?" He asked as she walked over to him.

"Yeah." She answered then turned her eyes to Stefan who gave her a nod of encouragement. "Let's go."

They made small talk on the way to the movie discovering that they had similar taste in music and movies. After calling to see what was playing they decided on Avatar.

Thirty minutes into the movie and halfway through a large popcorn Tyler took his eyes off the movie to look at Katie. One of her legs was crossed over the other and one hand was tucked in the bend of her knee while the other rested on the arm rest that she shared with him.

Katie, feeling like she was being watched, glanced over at Tyler to see him looking at her hand. So she turned her eyes back to the screen and flipped her hand over. A few minutes later he placed his hand over it, slipping his fingers between hers. She looked at him and smiled. She was almost positive that there was a bit of a blush on his cheeks as he gave her a closed lipped smile back, but it was hard to be sure in the dim lighting.

They held hands for the rest of the movie and until they walked to his car and he opened her door for her. "So what do you feel like eating?" He asked as he started the car.

"Umm, you chose. I'm not picky." She told him with a shrug.

"Is this one of those trick questions where you tell me to choose just to see if I get it right?" He asked with a playful glare making Katie laugh.

"No, I promise, I really don't care. You could bring me to McDonald's and I'd be happy."

"Ew, really?" He asked and she nodded. "Well, we're not going to McDonald's." He put the car into drive.

"So where are we going?" Katie asked curiously.

"You'll see." He told her as he pulled out onto the highway. "And if you complain when we get there I'm throwing you out of the car." he told her making her smile.

A few minutes later he pulled up in front of the Mystic Grill. "You brought me to the place I work?"

"I brought you to where we both were when I decided I was finally going to ask you out." Katie felt her cheeks warm as she gave him an almost bashful smile. "I was aiming for romantic. Did I completely miss and land in cheesy?"

"No." Katie laughed out the word and shook her head.

Katie's heart dropped when they walked in and her eyes landed on Damon sitting at the bar. "Do you wanna go somewhere else?" Tyler asked when he saw him too.

"Nope." She told him as she forced a smile on to her face.

"Okay." Tyler guided her to the table he had been sitting at when he asked her for her number and they sat down. "So, what do you do for fun?" Tyler asked trying to get to know her better.

"No one knows this, but I actually write poetry." She answered. "I kinda think some of my poems could be songs, but I have zero knowledge of music so..." she shrugged. "What about you?"

"I draw." He answered while playing with the square cardboard coaster in his hands.

"Are you any good?" She asked as their food was sat down in front of them.

"The art teacher thinks so." He answered with a shrug. "If you want to go to my place when were done here I'll show you some of my sketches."

Katie grabbed his left hand and looked at the watch on his wrist. "Won't your parents be mad if you bring me to your place this late?" She let go of his wrist.

"They're gone for the weekend." He answered.

"Then sure." She answered then they started eating.

Somewhere in the middle of their dinner Damon left and Katie didn't notice. When they were done Tyler paid the bill then drove to his house.

"So was it just me or were there big brother vibes coming off of Stefan when I picked you up?" Tyler asked as he unlocked his front door the walked inside.

"It wasn't just you." She answered as she followed him inside and he turned on the lights.

"Every girl in school went gaga over that guy when he showed up." He said as she followed him up the stairs then stopped and looked at her when they got to his bedroom door. "And you live in the same house as him."

"Are you afraid you might have competition?" She asked challengingly.

He rolled his eyes and pursed his lips. "No."

"Good, because you don't." She replied with a smile and he opened his bedroom door. "I'm one of the few who didn't take one look at him and instantly want to jump into his pants." She didn't know what she thought his room would look like, but it definitely wasn't what she expected.

She always thought most teen aged guys would have messy, cluttered rooms, but Tyler's was neat and clean. Just like her room in the Salvatore house his had a fireplace that looked like it hadn't been used in years. Sports trophies and a signed baseball sat along its white mantel. White nightstands with lamps on them sat on each side of his queen sized bed that was made with a simple thin white bedspread and goldish yellow pillow cases.

Tyler pulled a drawing pad off of the book shelf in the room and walked over to her as he flipped through a couple pages. He flipped the pad around and handed it to her. "Whoa." She commented when her eyes landed on a drawing of a guy crouched down in what she thought of as superhero landing. "I'm no artist, but this is really good." She said as she flipped to the next page revealing a sketch of a woman in short shorts and a tank top with gun holsters on each thigh and a gun in each hand. "Oh thats-"

"Lara Croft." Katie finished for him. "The video game one, not the Angelina Jolie one."

"You play video games?" He asked with raised brows.

"Nope, but Jeremy does. I've picked up on a few things over the years." She shrugged and handed him the pad. "You plan on doing anything with your art or is it just something you do for fun?" She asked.

"It's just for fun." He answered as he put the book away then walked over to his bed and sat down. He looked at her like he wanted her to sit down next to him.

She just walked over and leaned on the post of his four poster bed and turned her eyes to the floor with a frown. She hadn't thought things through and didn't even think about what was going to happen after he showed her his drawings. "Can I ask you something without you possibly getting offended?" She asked looking up from the floor to him.

"Sure." He answered giving her a curious look.

"Did you bring me here just to see if I would sleep with you?" She asked already kicking herself for being so blunt.

"No?" He asked more than answered.

"Because I'm not one of those girls that's going to go further than first base on the first date and I don't want you to get pissed when I don't put out. I know that I'm a cheerleader and cheerleaders are supposedly easy and-"

Tyler stood up and put his hand over her mouth. "I never thought I would say this to you because you're so quiet at school, but shut up." Katie rolled her eyes at him. "If I move my hand are you going to keep freaking out on me?" He asked looking at her with a playful smile on his face as he looked at her through his lashes. As she looked down at his hand over her mouth she decided to be mean. She nodded her head yes. "Then I guess my hands going to stay here all night." As soon as he finished talking Katie licked his palm making him pull it back with a disgusted face and she started laughing. "Oh, you are so going to pay for that." He told her as he tried to wipe her spit on her face. She laughed and tried to dodge him, but he managed to wipe it on her neck instead.

She yelped when he tackled her to his bed and started trying to lick her face. "No." she laughed and attempted hold him back but failed miserably. He managed to grab her hands and pin them to the bed then licked her from chin to cheekbone. "Okay. Okay we're even." She laughed as he pulled back and they both realized the position their wrestling had put them in. He still had her hands pinned down and was straddling one of her legs, both of them breathing a little harder than normal after their playful tiff. "Can I have one of my hands please?" she asked and he let go of her hand.

She wiped his spit off of her face then smiled deviously as she wiped it on his cheek. He closed his eyes and wrinkled his nose. "Really?" he opened his eyes when Katie laughed.

"Mhmm." Katie hummed then hooked her pointer finger into the collar of his button up shirt. She was thankful he couldn't hear the rapid beating of her heart as she looked up into his chocolate brown eyes. She let her eyes slip down to his naturally pouty lips then back to his eyes. He took the hint and leaned down, pressing his lips gently to hers. Katie always thought a kiss was a kiss, they'd all feel the same, but that wasn't the case. Kissing Tyler felt nothing like kissing Damon, but she found that she liked it all the same.

He kept the first kiss short and simple and pulled back after a few seconds. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and bit it as she gave him a closed lipped smile. "You are _so not_ a lesbian." He said with a goofy smile.

"Shut up." She laughed. "I can't believe you guys thought I was a lesbian." She said with a shake of her head.

"I never really believed it." he told her with a tilt of his head.

"So should I keep proving to you how straight I am?" she asked.

"Hey I won't stop you." he said making her smile as she started unbuttoning his shirt. Once she had all the buttons undone he took it off then rolled them over so that she was on top and sat up so that she was in his lap. He cupped her face in his hand as he kissed her and started pushing her jacket off of her shoulders. She took it off and let it fall to the floor behind her then pulled back from him long enough to grab the hem of her shirt, take it off and toss it to the side.

His eyes glazed over when they landed on her cleavage, pushed up by her white bra with black pinstripes and black lace trim. She was going to take it off, but the hardness she could feel against her butt told her he liked it, a lot. So she kept in on and slid her hands up his chest to cross her wrists behind his neck. When he still didn't look up from her chest she smiled. "Tyler?" she sing songed his name. When he still didn't take his eyes off her chest she grabbed his hand off her hip and brought it to her lips. He watched with lustful eyes as she kissed the tips of his fingers starting with his pinky. When she got to his pointer finger she swirled her tongue around the tip then sucked it into her mouth. Her teeth grazed it as she pulled her head back then let go over his hand.

A quiet laugh left her lips as his other hand flew to the side of her neck and pulled her into him. Any restraint either of them had left was thrown out the window as he moved them around to be on top of her. Her legs wrapped around his hips as his lips attacked hers and their hands roamed each other.

After thirty minutes of making out things started to cool off. He was leaning back against his headboard with Katie in his lap, his hands gripping her jean covered thighs while she kissed his neck when she pulled back and grabbed his wrist to look at his watch. "Whoa, it's late." She showed him his watch.

"Time flies when you're having fun." He commented as he cupped her face in his hand. "We should probably get you home huh?"

"Unfortunately." she answered as she moved off of him and slid to the edge of the bed. "Have you seen my shirt?" She asked as she scooped her jacket up off the floor.

"I think you threw it over there." He pointed to the foot of the bed. She stood up and walked around the bed to see her shirt on the floor. "You know my parents won't be home until tomorrow night. If you don't want to go to the boarding house you can stay here." Katie paused and bit her lip thinking about it. "You can use the guest bedroom if you want." He added thinking it might help convince her to stay with him instead of going back to the house with Damon.

"I'll stay." She answered as she put her jacket on the back of the chair that sat in front of his tv then crawled onto the bed and laid down next to him where he still sat leaning against the head board, "but not in the guest room." he slid down to lay next to her and she rolled onto her side, putting her head on his shoulder as she placed her hand on his chest.

As much as she liked Tyler and how much he made her laugh, in that moment all she could think about was how she should be lying like this with Damon in his bed. Then she remembered all the crap he'd put her through and looked up at Tyler who was looking up at the ceiling. "Thank you."

"For what?" he asked looking into her eyes.

"Everything. Asking me out, taking me on a classic date, making me laugh, giving me a place to stay for the night where I don't feel like murdering anyone." She said with all seriousness.

"You're welcome." He cupped her face in his hand and slid his thumb over her bottom lip. She smiled and bit it. "Damn woman." He smiled and rolled over pinning her hands to the bed beside her head.

"What?" she smiled at him innocently.

"You know what." He told her with lust back in his eyes.

"Tell me anyway." She said then bit her lip.

"You're a tease." He told her then started kissing her neck.

"Yeah, but you like it." she sighed tilting her head to the side as she slid her hands over his still nude back.

They messed around until neither of them could keep their eyes open. She fell asleep on top of the blankets while Tyler slept under them. He asked her to get under the covers with him but she lied and said that she doesn't sleep covered up.

* * *

Katie thought she heard someone clearing their throat, but being half asleep she didn't pay it much attention and just snuggled into Tyler's side. That was until some one clapped their hands and yelled "Tyler!"

They both shot straight up in bed and looked at his open bedroom door to see his mom. "Crap." Katie sighed and felt herself wanting to sink into the mattress and disappear.

"Yeah, crap." Mrs. Lockwood snapped as she crossed her arms over her chest then looked at her son. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Nothing, were weren't doing anything I swear." He answered as he got out of bed showing his mom that he still had his pants on.

Katie stood up and grabbed her jacket. "Mrs. Lockwood, I-"

"You, don't get to talk." She pointed at finger at Katie who closed her mouth and held her jacket in her hands in front of herself. "You, explain yourself." She said with a point at Tyler where he stood on his side of the bed while Katie stood at the foot of it.

"We went on a date then came back here to hang out. We watched tv and ended up falling asleep." He lied, but it didn't really matter because his parents wouldn't believe them anyway.

Mrs. Lockwood stared at him looking like she was considering believing what he was telling her, but then she looked at Katie and said, "Get out of here."

"Yes, ma'am." Katie answered quietly then headed for the door with her eyes down cast. When she was out of the door she turned back to Tyler and said, "Thanks, again." then headed downstairs.

She ran into the mayor on the way to the front door. "Katie, what are you doing here?" he asked looking confused.

"Tyler and I fell asleep watching tv last night." She answered making the mayor frown. "Your wife wouldn't let me talk, but maybe you will?" she asked and he nodded and motioned for her to speak. "I know coming home and finding your son with a girl in his bed doesn't look good, but I promise we didn't do anything last night."

"Okay, time for you to go." He told her and put his hand on her shoulder to push her toward the door.

"Please let me finish?" she asked as he opened the front door. He gave her a tight lipped nod and she saw Mrs. Lockwood walk down the stairs and look at her husband talking to Katie. "Tyler knows my home life sucks, as I'm sure you well know, and I didn't want to go home. He's a good guy, please don't punish him for my mistake."

"Have a good day Katie." He told her then shut the door in her face.

"Way to get on the parent's good side Katie." She scoffed and looked around as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and started walking. She knew she should call someone, her ankle boots weren't made for walking, but she didn't know who to call. If she called Caroline or Elena she'd get a judgmental lecture on how she shouldn't have stayed the night with Tyler. So she called the one person she knew might possibly understand, Stefan.

He picked up after a few rings. "Hello?" he asked sounding sleepy.

"I am so sorry if I woke you up or if you're with Elena," She started and she heard him grunt as he sat up. "and I don't mean to bother you-"

"No, no, it's fine. Elena's not staying here until Damon calms down." He explained. "Are you okay? You didn't come home last night." He asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I fell asleep at Tyler's." she said then tripped when her heel landed on a rock and she twisted her ankle. "His parents came home early and found us asleep in his bed."

"Oh, that sucks." He said and she could hear humor in his voice.

"I know, way to make a good impression on the boyfriend's parent's huh?" she asked then tripped over another rock. Stefan laughed. "So I hate to ask, but do you think you could come pick me up? Because I'm currently doing the walk of shame down a rock road in heels when I don't even really have anything to be ashamed of."

"Okay, stop walking before you twist and ankle. I've heard you trip twice already." He said and she could hear the rustle of him putting on clothes.

"You could hear that?" she asked a little surprised that he could figure that out over the phone.

"Super hearing applies to phones too." He answered. "I'll steal Damon's key's and come get you."

"Thank you, Stefan."

"Hang tight." He answered back then hung up. Despite what he told her Katie kept walking, kicking rocks as she did so that she wouldn't trip over them. Soon she saw Damon's car headed her way so she stopped walking and uncrossed her arms from her chest. He stopped and rolled down the window even though the top was down. "Hey stranger need a ride?" he asked jokingly and Katie just rolled her eyes and walked around the car as he rolled the window up.

"Why don't you have your own car?" Katie asked as she climbed inside.

"I do, I just don't drive it." he answered.

"Why not?" she asked tying to keep the conversation off of her and her recent mistakes.

"It's too showy, draws too much attention." He answered and the conversation fell for a few minutes. "Why did you call me instead of one of your friends?" he asked with a look at her across his shoulder.

"Because I knew that if I called them I would get all kinds of questions and judgmental comments and possibly a lecture. I didn't feel like hearing that today." She said with a shrug.

"How do you know I'm not going to lecture you or judge you?" he asked and she looked at him to see his eyes on the road.

"I don't know, you don't seem the type." She shrugged. "And out of all of my friends I figured you would understand why I didn't want to come home." She admitted.

"You just celled me your friend." He pointed out.

"That's because you are." She pointed out. "I wouldn't have called you otherwise." The conversation fell again and after a few more minutes he pulled into the boarding house driveway.

They headed into the house without another word to each other and when Katie got to her room the first thing she noticed was her journal sitting on her bed and not where she had left it on her desk. Cautiously she walked over to it and picked it up and opened it. Damon's handwriting in red ink marred every page with notes in the margins. She didn't even read what he had written all she cared about was the fact that he had read her whole journal. With shaking hands Katie sat down at her desk and took all of her poems out of the back pocket of the spiral book to see that he had written and doodled on those too. She sighed and placed her head in her hands, willing herself not to cry. It worked, but sadness turned to anger.

She got up and locked her bedroom door to keep anyone from coming in. Then went to her bathroom and showered. After she got dressed she grabbed her keys and purse and left her room. She was halfway down the stairs when Damon zipped in front of her. "Where are you going?" He asked with a smirk.

"If you must know I'm going to by a new journal since you vandalized mine." She answered flatly.

"Why didn't you tell me you wrote poetry and songs?" He asked tilting his head to the side.

"Because you never asked what I did for fun." She told him already tired of the conversation. "Just like you never took me on a date." He opened his mouth to argue but she didn't give him the chance. "Founder's parties and school dances don't count as dates." He closed his mouth and frowned. "Now will you please get out of my way?" She asked and it surprised her when he stepped aside and let her pass.

* * *

Katie sat down and put her new, green faux leather journal with a combination lock on the desk and opened it. She knew the lock would stand a chance if Damon really wanted to read her journal again, but it gave her a feeling of security anyway. After writing her old poems in the back she turned to fresh back page and started writing a song when it was done, she titled it, "Kissing Other People."


	13. Chapter 13

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 13**

For the next week Katie and Tyler hung out at the grill and went on a couple dates. She was working the bar even though she wasn't supposed to be when Tyler came in and set down. "Hey." He said as he leaned across the bar and she kissed him.

"Hey." She smiled back then started washing some glasses.

"Are you working tonight?" he asked and she shook her head as she hummed a negative answer. "Wanna go to the bachelor raffle with me?"

"What?" Katie laughed. "I thought you hated those stupid events."

"I do, but my mom is making me go and it will be a lot more tolerable if you're with me." He said and she hesitantly looked him in the eyes. "Look, I know you don't like my mom, but-"

"I like your mom just fine. It's her that doesn't like me and I really wish she did because then I'd have at least half a chance being picked for Miss Mystic." She said and he rolled his eyes.

"You seriously signed up for that?" he asked.

"The winner gets a scholarship, so yes I signed up." She sighed not liking that she was going to have to suck up to people and flounce around in a pretty dress to get a scholarship, but she was desperate.

"So was that a yes?" he asked getting back to his original question.

"That was an I'll think about it." she answered.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Come on, you and my mom will have to see each other at some point."

"I'll think about it." she told him again not letting him push her into something she didn't want to do.

"Okay fine. Just text me and let me know what you decide." He told her then walked over to the pool table and started playing pool with Matt.

* * *

When she pulled up in front of the boarding house she saw Elena's car in the driveway. So she headed inside intending to find her and Stefan in his room and ask them for advice on what she should do about Tyler's mom. "Knock, knock." Katie called as she came up the stairs and into Stefan's room. Instead she found Elena buttoning up Damon's shirt. When he turned around she could tell that he was drunk as a skunk. "You're not Stefan." she drawled coming to a stop.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Elena asked as she walked around Damon to Katie.

"I live here, remember?" Katie reminded her.

"No, here as in Stefan's room." she asked, her tone verging on snotty.

"I saw your car in the driveway, I figured you two would be up here. I need some Tyler advice." She said with a shrug not understanding why Elena was getting snotty with her.

"You just barged in. What if we were busy or if I wasn't in here and he was changing or something?" she asked, her tone fully snotty now.

Katie glanced at Damon to see him looking at them, liking the girl fight going on. "Seriously? Are you trying to sound like a jealous girlfriend? Because that's how you're coming off right now." Katie asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"No, I'm just saying that we need to establish some boundaries." Elena tried to calm her down.

"Boundaries?" Katie asked not believing that was what Elena was saying at all. "We have established boundaries. If the door's open I'm welcome to come in, if it's closed it means that I need to knock."

"What's goin' on here?" Stefan asked and they looked over to see him standing in the doorway.

"Elena thinks Katie Cat's trying to steal you away from her." Damon spoke up with a drunken sway from side to side. "Which I know can't possibly be true." He told him then looked at Katie.

"Yeah and why's that?" Stefan asked as he walked over to Elena and placed his hand on the small of her back.

"You're too muscular." He said not looking away from Katie. "It grosses her out." He said with a smart ass wrinkle of his nose at her.

"First off, don't call me Katie Cat. Second, thank you for that so very helpful bit of information. Third, how do you know I didn't just lie about that to keep from hurting your feelings?"

"Okay none of this is helpful." Stefan spoke up cutting off the fight before it got bad. He then looked down at Elena. "Katie's right, those are the rules we silently established. So she had every right to think it was okay to come in."

"Right, so you two are hanging out in here now?" Elena asked simmering down the snotty-ness a little, but it was still there.

"Okay, I'm going to go get dressed for the raffle." Damon said to no one in particular.

"You're going to the raffle?" Katie asked with raise brows and he hummed as he walked out. "Okay, I came up here for advice, but I think I figured it out on my own." Katie tried to walk off, but Stefan grabbed her shirt sleeve stopping her. She growled out a sigh and back tracked to face him and Elena. "What?"

He let go of her shirt and pointed to one of the old armchairs in the room, "Sit." Katie sighed and sat down then he looked at Elena and pointed to the second matching chair that sat kitty corner to the one Katie was sitting in "You too." Elena rolled her eyes but sat down and Stefan sat down on the arm of the old couch that sat against the wall not too far from them. "Elena, I told Katie that if she ever needed to talk that she could come to me." Stefan started. "She and I are friends." Elena just blinked at him, still not liking it. "And considering we're living in the same house now, I thought it would be better than her hating me."

"I just don't understand why she can't talk to me, or Caroline or Bonnie." Elena said talking with her hands.

"There are things that he gets that you and the girls don't." Katie spoke up deciding to not let Stefan do all the talking.

"Like what?" Elena asked.

"Like I stayed the night with Tyler the other night." She replied and Elena's jaw dropped.

"You what?" she asked with a disapproving look.

"Yeah and his parents came home early and caught us sleeping." Katie added fanning the flames.

"Oh my god Katie. Just because you lost it to Damon doesn't mean that-" Elena started, but Katie interrupted her.

"See that," Katie pointed at Elena as she sat up straighter, "That right there is why I didn't call you to pick me up. I knew you would judge me nine ways to Sunday like you always do." She stood up not being able to sit down for this conversation. "If Bonnie was home I would've called her because at least she would've heard me out before she passed judgment."

"I think we've gotten off point." Stefan spoke up trying to reel the girls back in. They both stopped glaring at each other to look at Stefan. "The point is, that Katie is just a friend." He looked at Elena. "I don't see her that way and I'm pretty sure she doesn't see me that way either because apparently I gross her out." He smirked at Katie and Elena looked at her expecting her to say something.

"He's like the big brother I never had." Katie added with a non committal shrug and Stefan gave her a thankful look. "And we don't hang out in here, I wouldn't step on your toes like that."

"See, no harm no foul." Stefan stood up. "So why don't you two go talk it out down stairs so I can get dressed for the raffle."

"I need to get changed too." Katie stood up and brushed her hands over her pants. "I'll see you guys at the raffle." She texted Tyler letting him know she was going to go to the raffle with him as she headed to her room. She changed from her work shirt and ratty jeans to a black knit sweater, jeans and some knee high boots.

She was headed out the door when she ran into Elena who was also leaving. "Hey, I've been meaning to tell you…" she started making Katie pause and look at her friend. "I found out who my birth mother is."

"Wow, really?" Katie asked not having been expecting what she told her.

"Yeah." Elena looked down and brushed her hair behind her hear. "Turns out she was Mr. Saltzman's wife." She looked back up.

"Wait, was?" Katie asked, her heart falling a little.

"Yeah, we think she was killed by a vampire." Elena answered as they left the doorway and walked out to the cars.

"I'm so sorry." Katie looked down at her car keys. "I wish I knew something else to say, but you know me, I suck with words in moments like this."

Elena actually smiled. "It's okay, at least I know someone who knew her, you now? Maybe he can tell me about her."

"Yeah, maybe." Katie said awkwardly then a moment of silence fell over them and she couldn't stand it. "Are we okay?" she asked making Elena look at her. "I really don't like Stefan that way and I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes. I mean, I have Tyler now and I must really like him if I'm going to walk into the lions den with him."

"Lions den?" she asked not answering her question.

"His mom is running this whole thing and she's the one that walked in on me asleep with her son." She answered. "I don't really know how to look the woman in the eyes now."

"I'm not trying to judge you, but you two didn't…" she made a suggestive face.

"No. We just made out, a lot, and fell asleep." Katie answered still fiddling with her keys. "I may have changed a lot recently, but there are still a few of my morals that Damon didn't destroy.

"Yeah, I'm good at that." Damon walked out and gave the girls a smile.

"I think that's one of the few things we won't argue about." Katie quipped then waved to Elena and left.

* * *

Katie got to the grill before Tyler so she decided to hang out with Elena, Matt and Caroline where she stood selling the raffle tickets. "He's already been hit on, like, thirty-five times. He's total cougar bait." Caroline said with a smile at Matt.

"Impressive." Elena said.

"More like embarrassing." he said with a smile at Caroline who laughed.

Katie stepped out of the way when Matt's mom walked up. "Hi Misses Donovan." Caroline greeted the woman with way too much cheer in her voice.

The woman just rolled her eyes at her and looked at Elena then smiled. "Elena, honey." She greeted Elena with a hug and Katie noticed Caroline's smile fall as she looked down at her hands on the table. Elena asked her how she was doing. "Same old." She answered still ignoring Caroline. "Mattie tells me you broke his heart."

"Mom." Matt scolded his mom.

"Just kidding. Calm down." She told him then jerked her head at Caroline. "He found his rebound girl." Katie felt her jaw slack at the comment. "Here you go, sweetheart. How ever many that will buy." She handed Caroline a folded bill. "I just hope I don't get bachelor three. I dated him in high school. Not impressive." She said then whispered, "in any way." Matt and Katie rolled their eyes while Caroline and Elena smiled as Kelly took her tickets from Caroline and walked off.

"Wow, Matt, your mom is uh…" Katie shook her head looking for the right word, "A real piece of work." She finished with a tight lip smile and lifted brows.

"Yeah, I gotta get back to it." he said with a point over his shoulder.

"She hates me." Caroline said after Matt walked off. "She caught us making out on the couch."

"Well," Katie said getting Caroline's attention, "rebound girl is better than getting called trash like Mrs. Mayor douche bag called me _before_ she caught me in Tyler's bed."

"What?" Caroline asked with a shocked laugh. "She caught the two of you having sex?" she asked with a smile.

"No, we were just sleeping. Fully clothed I might add." She said as she motioned for Caroline to keep it down. "Well, he wasn't wearing a shirt, but still." She added getting off topic. "So I'd say you have a better chance of winning over Matt's mom before I even put a dent in Tyler's."

"Did I hear my name?" he asked as he walked in and put his arm around Katie's waist.

"Nope, you're hearing things." Katie quipped with a smile up at him and he kissed her on her lips. "Hi." She told him then looked over the room, her eyes landing on a drunk Damon chatting up Tyler's mom.

"You want to grab a table before they're all taken?" he asked with a nod to the tables and Katie nodded.

Other than a few dirty looks from Carol the party was going good. Carol was on stage questioning the bachelors. Things took a turn for the worse when she started questioning Damon. "Do you have any hobbies, like to travel?" Carol asked trying to get him to talk about himself.

"Oh, yeah, L.A., New York." He listed off a few places. "A couple of years ago, I was in North Carolina, near the Duke campus, actually. I think…I think Alaric went to school there. Didn't you Rick?" Katie could tell that he was up to something as soon as he turned things to Mr. Saltzman. Normally when given the chance he would only talk about himself. "Yeah 'cause I know your wife did." At the mention of Rick's wife Katie turned her eyes to Elena to see her staring blank faced at Damon. "I had a drink with her once. "She was… a great girl. Did I ever tell you that?" Damon asked Alaric. "'Cause she was… mmm she was delicious."

"Oh my god." Katie didn't mean to say it out loud but she looked over to see Elena get up.

"What's the matter?" Tyler asked.

"Nothing I just, uh, I'm feeling light headed. I'm gonna go get some air. I'll be right back." Katie got up and ran after her to find her and Stefan talking outside.

"Damon was the vampire that killed her?" Elena asked Stefan with tears in her eyes.

"I don't know what happened. Alaric said that they never found the body." Stefan told her.

"Oh my god…Stefan…" Elena said looking around, her eyes landing on Katie standing behind Stefan.

"Hey, I don't mean to intrude, I just…I couldn't stay in there after that." Katie said as she walked up.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I just… I wanted to know more." Stefan told her as Katie joined them.

"Did you know?" Elena asked Katie.

"No, I promise you I didn't." Katie said with her hands raised.

"I was feeling sorry for him, hoping that losing Katherine and Katie would change him. I'm so stupid." Elena said holding her arms out to the side before she let them flop down to her sides.

"He doesn't know about the connection to you." Damon started. "I thought about confronting him, but he's already so on edge and fighting with Katie isn't helping." He paused remembering that Katie was standing there. "Not that you can help it."

"Why are you protecting him?" Elena yelled, angry at Damon for killing her mother.

"Because you're not the only one hoping that he might actually change." Stefan answered with a look over at Katie. "I know you don't want to believe it because he hurt you, but he really does love you. I haven't seen him look at anyone the way he looked at you since he was with Katherine."

Katie was crossing her arms over her chest when Elena said, "That man." and they followed her eyes to a guy standing down the street staring at them. "I saw that man outside of Trudie's."

"Get back inside, both of you." Stefan said as he put his hand on Elena's arm and urged them side.

Katie walked in first, hearing Carol announce who won what bachelor, when she ran into Damon. "Whoa, easy there. Buy a ticket like everyone else." He quipped, alcohol rolling off of his breath.

Katie took a step back then back handed him. "Elena will explain what that's for." Katie walked around him and over to Tyler. "Hey, I'm not feeling too hot, I think I'm gonna head home."

"Yeah you don't look good, do I need to drive you?" he asked looking genuinely concerned which made her feel even worse about lying to him.

"No," she smiled tiredly at him, "I can drive. Thank you though."

"Okay." He gave her a smile and kissed her cheek. "If I ever heard Matt say this I would make fun of him so bad, but text me when you get home so I know you made it there okay."

Katie gave him a weak laugh. "Okay, I will."

Katie pulled up to the boarding house and killed her car but didn't get out. Instead she leaned forward, putting her head on the steering wheel. "I miss my old life." She sighed then forced herself to pick her head back up and get out of the car. She could hear Damon and Stefan talking and she followed their voices to the library.

"Like you've been handling Katharine and Katie?" Stefan asked and Katie stopped in the doorway and covered her mouth with her hand when she saw Mr. Saltzman dead on the rug in front of the lit fireplace.

"I've been handling it fine." Damon said, neither of them seeing Katie standing in the doorway. "You know what? Isobel came to me. She found me. And if she's related to Elena that means she's related to Katherine. Maybe Katherine sent her to me."

"Stop it." Stefan told him still not seeing Katie. "You don't have to keep looking."

"It can't be a coincidence Isobel sought me out." He pointed at Stefan with the same hand he was holding his bourbon glass in. "Nu uh, it can't." He finished his drink and set the glass on the end table and stood up. "I assume you'll take care of this?" He turned to leave and they both finally saw Katie standing in the doorway with tears in her eyes.

"How much of that did you hear?" Stefan asked not moving from Alaric's side.

"I came in on…like you've been handling Katherine and Katie..." she answered not taking her eyes off of Damon. "You killed my favorite teacher?"

"He attacked me first." Damon scoffed and walked around her and out the door.

Katie stared at her dead teacher as she walked into the room and sat down on the couch. "He was a good guy, he deserves better than to be buried in some random, unmarked grave."

"I'm sorry you had to see this." He told her as he kept looking down at Alaric.

They were both just sitting there in silence when Alaric's fingers twitched. "Did he just-?"

"Yep." Stefan answered not letting her finish the question.

Katie yelped and jumped back when Alaric gasped in a deep breath and sat up. "What happened? What's going on?" He asked.

"I just had a heart attack, that's what." Katie said looking at her breathing teacher who was dead ten seconds earlier. He looked at her then back to Stefan.

"You were just..." Stefan trailed off looking the man over. "Did Damon turn you?"

"No, I uh...I went for him and then he uh... he stabbed me." Alaric said checking himself over for wounds.

"No, no, no, you must have vampire blood in your system somebody slipped it to you." Stefan argued.

"No it uh," Alaric looked at his hand and wiggles his fingers. "It's something else."

"Could it be the huge, ugly thing on your finger?" Katie asked noticing it was similar in size and ugliness as the magical daylight rings that Damon and Stefan wore.

He looked at Katie then down at his ring. "Isobel?" He asked as Stefan looked up at Katie. "This ring protected me."

"That's impossible." Stefan said then stood up and helped Alaric up.

"It's no more impossible than what your ring does for you." Katie pointed out.

"He lives here, but what are you doing here and how do you know about this stuff?" Alaric asked Katie.

"I kind of live here too." She answered.

"I thought you lived with your grandpa." He pointed out.

"He kicked me out." She explained. "And I know about vampires because I dated Damon."

"It's not safe for you here they can mess with your mind." He said getting ready to give her a speech about how she shouldn't be living with vampires.

"There's vervain in my necklace." She told him and he closed his mouth and blinked at her. "Trust me. I'm safer here than with my grandfather."

"You should probably get out of here." Stefan told him and Alaric nodded and picked his stake off of the floor. They watched him walk out.

"It's been one hell of a night." Katie groaned and stood from the couch. "And I'd like nothing more than for it to be over." She started out of the room. "Night, Stefan." She called over her shoulder. She heard him hum at her before she was completely out of the room.

After showering and writing a journal entry she sat down on her bed and picked up her guitar from the stand she kept it on near her night stand. She practiced a little letting the self taught guitar lesson relax her enough that she could lay down in bed and go straight to sleep. She found herself missing the days of sleeping with Damon to clear her mind.

* * *

A couple weeks later Katie stood at her locker talking to Tyler when Caroline came over with a smile on her face. "Hey, Elena and Stefan and me and Matt are going on a double date, I figured we could make it a triple date."

"Sorry, I have to work." Katie answered, not really wanting to go on the triple date anyway.

"Aw, come on, you can't get out of it?" Caroline asked with a frown.

"Nope, sorry." She shrugged and tucked a book away in her locker then shut it.

"Okay, see you later then." Caroline walked off.

Tyler looked at her with a smirk and raise brows. "What?" Katie asked defensively.

"You just didn't want to go did you?" he asked being able to see straight though her mock disappointment.

"And be witness to Caroline trying to see if Matt is really over Elena? No thanks." Katie said with a disgusted face and a head shake.

"Oh, that's what that's all about?" he asked and Katie nodded with a hum. "Well thanks for saving me from sitting though that." He said with relief in his voice.

Katie grabbed his hand and looked at the watch he always wore. "I should be heading to work." She moved his hand around in hers to hold it and gave him a smile. "I'll call you later."

Tyler gave her a small smile back as he leaned in and kissed her. "Okay."

Katie was serving a customer when she saw Damon walk in and sit down at the bar next to Matt's mom, Kelly. She knew as soon as the two started talking that the night was going to be interesting. An hour later Matt, Caroline, Elena and Stefan came in and sat down at a table in Katie's section. So she took her note pad and pen out as she walked over and greeted them. She took their order, already sensing a little awkwardness in the group, then went and stuck the order on the ticket wheel. With no one else in her section she moved to the bar that the new, flakey bartender had abandoned.

When she saw Damon, Kelly and Jenna being loud, Katie understood why the bartender fled. "Don't be grumpy. It can't be that bad." Jenna said as Damon grabbed a bottle and poured a shot. Katie stood at the other end of the bar, unnoticed by Damon.

"You'd be surprised. My primary reason for existence has abandoned me. And, after today's events, the remains of the shaky ground that I walk on are about to go ka-boom." His words made Katie wonder what happened today that would make him say that, but then he looked at Kelly and said, "Let's get hammered."

Katie rolled her eyes and put on a fake smile. "Is there anything I can get you guys?"

"Yeah, a new bottle." Damon answered, making Katie roll her eyes as she reached behind her and grabbed a bottle of the bourbon that she knew he liked.

"Aren't you too young to be bartending?" Kelly asked.

"Yes, but unlike _you_ the manager likes me." Katie smiled sweetly. "Besides, do you see a bartender around here anywhere?"

Kelly looked at her as if she couldn't believe she had said that. "Come on Katie Cat, don't be catty." Damon told her with a smirk.

"You don't get to call me that anymore." She told him with an aggravated look.

"Oh, yeah, that's right. You two broke up recently." Jenna said already a little buzzed.

"Wait, _you_…dated _her_?" Kelly asked with wide eyes and a judging look.

"Yep and he's not impressive…" deciding to mimic what Kelly had said about bachelor number three at the raffle, Katie cut her eyes down and dramatically whispered, "In any way." then walked off while Damon gave her the evil eye.

A few hours later the double daters left and Jenna decided to bow out of drinking with Damon and Kelly who were getting too into each other. After seeing Damon take a tied cherry stem out of Kelly's mouth with his, Katie decided that she wanted her sanity more than a pay check and went home.

She saw Elena's car and Matt's truck in the driveway, but when she went inside she didn't see them. Bored, she sat down at the piano in the room and lifted the cover over the keys. Not knowing if she would even remember the one song her mother taught her before she died, Katie put her fingers on the keys and started playing. She messed up a few times, but for the most part it felt like riding a bike.

She was so lost in playing that she didn't hear Kelly and Damon walk in. When she was done playing she got up and went to go to her room, but she stopped in her tracks when she saw Damon leaning against the wall with Kelly's legs wrapped around his waist, his hands on her ass, holding her up as they made out. Katie was stuck, trying to decide if she should break them up or let them carry on when Matt, Caroline, Elena and Stefan walked in. "Mom?" Matt asked making then freeze.

"Damon?" Caroline asked as he pulled his face out of Kelly's chest and looked at them. He let Kelly go and she stepped back looking guilty. Damon's eyes instantly found Katie, taking in her rapidly beating heart and clenched fists.

"Oh my god, Matt." Kelly said as she bent down and picked up her jacket and grabbed her purse. She walked out looking ashamed of herself.

"I got to-" Matt started with a point to his mom.

"It's fine. Just go." Caroline told him with a sigh.

"I'll take her home." Elena told Matt.

Katie watched Damon as he grabbed the bottle of alcohol off of the table that he and Kelly had been making out next to then poured a glass. When Matt and his mom were out of sight Stefan, Elena and Caroline glared at Damon then walked outside. When they were gone Katie finally unfroze. She walked past him, purposely hitting his shoulder with hers as she did, then went to her room.

She sat down on her bed with a sigh and ran her fingers through her hair then balled her fists up, pulling her hair. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs or throw something. Instead she went down stairs to the library to get a drink, thinking no one would be in there. But Damon was sitting in the arm chair with his leg thrown over the arm of it. She ignored him as she grabbed a clean glass and filled it half full.

She was standing at the end of the couch, taking a big gulp, when Stefan came in. "Are you crazy?" Stefan asked.

Damon rolled his eyes. "Save the lecture. Look,-"

He was cut off when a male vampire jumped though the window and tackled Stefan, stabbing him in the chest with a piece of broken glass from the window. Damon pulled the guy off of him and they started fist fighting.

Katie was about to make a run for it, but a female vampire jumped through the window, sped in front of her, grabbed her by her throat and slammed her into the floor, sinking her teeth into her neck. Katie struggled to get away, but her vision was spotty from her head being slammed into the floor.

Stefan finally managed to get the glass out of his chest and staked the woman as Katie's world faded to black.

Damon, seeing Katie unmoving on the floor, blood seeping out of the back of her head and on to the rug, mustered the strength to throw the guy across the room. "Katie?" Damon ran to her side, sliding to her on his knees. "Katie, come on." He bit his wrist, opened her mouth and placed the bite mark against her tongue. The vampire looked at them, realized he was now out numbered and sped out of the window. "Come on Katie Cat, don't do this. Wake up."

Stefan walked over and listened for a pulse. Damon looked up at his brother with wide eyes, keeping his wrist on Katie's mouth. "Her pulse is faint, but it's there." Relief washed over Damon's face. "Pick her up." Damon slid his arms under Katie and picked her up. Stefan felt of the bloody spot on the back of her head. "Her skull is shattered. It's going to be a while before she wakes up." He jerked his head for Damon to follow him. He put a towel over her pillow then Damon laid her on her bed. "I doubt she'll want to see you when she does." Stefan said then walked out.

Damon brushed her hair out of her face and placed a kiss to her temple then left her alone.

* * *

Katie woke up and sat up in her dark room. With a groan she felt of the back of her head to find dried, crusty blood in her hair. Remembering that she had been bitten, she then moved her fingers to her neck feeling dried blood there too, but no wound. It clicked that someone had fed her their blood and saved her life.

The events of the night flooded back to her making her remember why she had gone downstairs in the first place. So she headed down stairs, not caring if she got attacked again. The living room was empty and instead of pouring a glass she just grabbed the bottle and went back to her room, drinking it as she went.

She set the bottle on her dresser as she stripped out of her clothes, then grabbed it and brought it into the shower with her. She only sat it down to wash her hair and then to dry off after she got done showering. She had the bottle in her hand and her towel secured around her as she walked out into her room. With her head tilted back and the bottle to her lips, her eyes landed on Damon, sitting crossed legged in the middle of her bed. "I've pushed you to binge drinking?" he asked not moving even though she was glaring at him.

"_Life_ has pushed me to drinking." She corrected. As she stumbled, her towel fell to the floor around her feet and she stumbled again this time falling onto her hands and knees. The bottle in her hand tipped over stilling the amber liquid all over the floor. Damon got up and walked over to her, holding his hand out to her. She didn't take it so he grabbed her under her arms and picked her up, pushing her towel over the liquid. "And you're a part of my life." She didn't look at him, but down at the floor as tears slipped from her eyes. "You're not supposed to be… that wasn't the plan…" she scooped up the bottle and walked over to her dresser.

"What are you talking about?" Damon asked a little confused by her drunken ramblings.

"You and me, you weren't supposed to still be here when we ended. You were supposed to run off into the sunset with _Katherine_ and let me move on with my life with you one hundred percent _out_ of it. A clean break, but no… life had something more cynical in mind." She set the bottle on the dresser and opened the drawer.

"Life never follows our plans does it?" he asked, now on the same line of thinking as her. She didn't answer and he watched as she pulled out one of the thongs he had found while helping her move and pulled it on. She had grabbed a bra that had stripes on it that reminded him of Zebra Gum and started trying to put it on, but her drunken fingers couldn't fasten the hooks. He walked over and helped her. "This is a change. I'm usually getting women out of their bras not in them."

"Ain't that the truth?" Katie scoffed and when he was finished with the hooks she grabbed the bottle and took a drink. "I'm pretty sure we were about ten seconds away from seeing Kelly topless and _none_ of us want to _ever_ see that." She set the bottle back on the dresser then fished a pair of shorts out of it and started trying to put them on but after the third time of her missing the leg hole with her foot Damon grabbed the shorts from her and kneeled down. She instinctively placed her hands on his shoulders and picked her foot up then repeated the movement with her other foot. He had pulled them up to her thighs when she placed her hands over his and helped him pull them all the way up. His hands flipped around, holding hers, while he still kneeled on the floor.

Their eyes met and after a few seconds Katie felt herself leaning into him. When her nose brushed his he grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her hard. In a blur they were on her bed with him on top of her pulling her legs around his hips. Katie's hands caressed his neck and back, but when he started kissing her neck, tears started slipping from the corners of her eyes, some landing on Damon's hands near her head, making him pull back to look into her blood shot eyes. "What's wrong?" he asked, concern filling his voice as his eyes searched hers.

"I can't do this." She pushed his shoulders and he sat up and watched her pull her knees to her chest, folded her arms over them then press her forehead to them. "I can't cheat on Tyler. I'm not a cheater. I can't be that girl." Her body shook with sobs as she rocked back and forth.

Damon put his hand on the back of her head, caressing it. "Then break up with him." She just shook her head, not looking up at him. "Why not? It's not like you love him."

She looked at him, her head still resting on her arms on her knees. "I'm happy with him, Damon." She told him and when she blinked another tear fell.

"But you don't love him." He argued, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone.

"But I could, one day, maybe." She said, her head swimming from the alcohol. "I owe it to myself to find out if I can love someone who is capable of loving me back."

"I love you, Katie." He told her as he slid his thumb over her bottom lip.

"Not whole heartedly. I heard you the other night, you're still…looking… for Katherine." She picked her head up and regretting it when she got dizzy. She closed her eyes, waiting for her world to stop spinning, and felt Damon cup her face in his hands. She opened her eyes and looked into his. "Until you stop looking for her…until you realize that she doesn't want you…there is no hope for us." She told him then let her head fall back onto her arms.

He saw her eyes started slipping shut. So he pulled back her covers, laid her down then pulled them over her. "Good night, Katie Cat."

* * *

Katie woke up the next morning with a raging headache. She pulled a tank top on and went downstairs to find Stefan in the kitchen. "Good morning." He greeted her.

"Good is debatable." She grumbled back as she pulled the icebox open.

"How are you feeling?" Stefan asked curiously.

"You mean other than extremely hung over?" she asked, shutting the door with a sigh. "I'm fine."

"You got drunk last night?" he asked with a frown then took a drink from a silver flask.

"You're one to judge?" she asked with a point to the flask.

"It's animal blood." He explained.

"Is there anything for a hang over in this house?" Katie asked unfazed by his statement.

"Really, no reaction to me bluntly stating that I'm drinking blood?" he asked, humor in his curious voice. "You've been around us too much." Katie rolled her eyes and gave him a look that told him to answer the question. "Here." He walked over to a drawer and grabbed a bottle of aspirin.

He tossed it to her and she managed to catch it. "Thank you." he left the kitchen as she took two pills then put the bottle back where he got them from.

She was walking through the house, eating a bowl of oatmeal when she walked by Damon carrying a large board, nails and a hammer. She realized then that it was storming outside and the window in the library was broken. "Need any help?" she asked, putting her spoon in the bowl.

"We're talking now?" he asked not looking back at her as he made his way to the library.

"Yes." She told him simply.

He stopped and set the board down. "Do you remember what happened last night?" Damon asked her with a frown.

"Yeah, unfortunately." She told him as she picked up her spoon, "Other wise I'd be wondering why I have a kick ass hang over." She took a bite of oatmeal and walked around him and into the library.

"Mkay." Damon drawled as he picked up the board and followed her.

"Look, I can't be mad at you and move on with Tyler, because if I'm mad at you then it means that I still feel something for you." she told him as she watched him walk over to the window then took another bite of food hoping a healthy breakfast would make her feel a little better. "So we need to figure out how to just be friends."

"And if I don't want to just be friends?" He asked as he put the board up over the window.

"Then you're just going to have to get over it." She said as she put her empty bowl down and grabbed the hammer and a nail.

She put a nail in the bottom corners then handed him the hammer. "A cheerleader that knows how to use a hammer." He said with an impressed smirk.

"It's not that hard. I can also install electrical outlets, hang light fixtures and ceiling fans, float, tape and texture drywall, and build a birdhouse from scratch." She said with a smile and pulled a superwoman pose as she held out a nail to him.

"And how did you learn how to do all that?" He asked then started putting more nails in the board.

"Working with habitat for humanity." She shrugged. "Hey, um, how bad was I hurt last night?" She asked not wanting to know, but she needed to.

He stopped hammering to look at her where she stood next to him fiddling nervously with a nail. "_Really_ bad." He told her quietly. "Bethann crushed your skull. Stefan thinks that if I would've gotten to you any later that we would've lost you."

"So it was you that saved me." She said with a nod as she sat down on the leather couch in the room. "Wait. You knew them?" She asked realizing that he called the vamp that almost killed her by name.

"Yeah. About that..." he started as he walked over and looked down at her. "They were in the tomb."

"How did they get out? What about the rest of them?" She asked, standing up again.

"The witches screwed up their juju. All of the vampires that were down there are free." He told her waiting for her reaction.

"Son of a bitch." She sighed and sat down on the couch again.

"That's not all. Some of them are hold up in a farm house just outside of town. Pearl, Katherine's best friend from back in the day, is leading them. They want to take the town back. She came to me looking to trade Katherine's location for information about the council." He told her and she sat up putting her elbows on her knees.

"What did you tell her?" Katie asked, not judging him, just wanting to know more.

"I told her no way in hell then she gouged my eyes out with her thumbs." He answered. "I didn't really have a choice after that."

"What's going on in here?" Stefan asked as he and Elena walked into the room.

"Damon's just filled me in on who those people were last night." Katie said not looking to see Elena in the room too.

"Are you okay?" Elena asked and Katie looked over at her not lifting her head off the back of the couch. "You look like crap."

Katie moved her eyes to Stefan as he walked further into the room. "Did you not tell her about last night?" she asked feeling like her head was going to explode. "Alcohol hangover ontop of vamp blood hangover…No es muy divertida en absolute."

Elena shook her head and set down next to Katie. "Leave it to you to speak crappy Spanish when you're hung over."

"Yeah, Katie, kind of almost died last night." Stefan said making Elena's head snap to him then look at Katie with wide eyes.

"Yeah, vampire bitch crushed my skull and bit me." Katie added.

"Katie you have to move out. You can stay with me if you need to." Elena said looking at her friend with wide eyes.

"Another discussion for another time." Katie brushed her off.

"Yeah we need to figure out what to do about these tomb vampires." Stefan spoke up making Elena look at him.

"I say we go to Pearl's, bust down the door, and annihilate the idiot that attacked us last night." Damon spoke up after putting the last nail in the board.

"Yeah? And then what? We turn to the rest if the house of vampires and say, oops. Sorry?" Stefan asked.

"I can't believe you made a deal with her." Elena told Damon.

"It was more like a helpful exchange of information." Damon said talking with his hands still holding the hammer as he walked around to stand in front of the fireplace. "It's not like I had a choice she's...scary." Damon said actually looking a little scared in his own, Damon way. "Besides, she's going to help me get Katherine back."

Katie felt her hatred of Katherine growing every time Damon said her name. "Oh, of course she is." Elena scoffed and stood up to stand by Stefan. "Damon gets what he wants no matter who gets hurt in the process."

Damon gave Katie a look that seemed to say, not everything I want, then gave Elena one of his cocky smirks. "There's no need to be snarky about it." He walked over and sat down next to Katie, putting his arm around her only for her to grab it and move it.

"I woke up this morning to learn that all the vampires had been released from the tomb. I've earned snarky." Elena replied making Katie roll her eyes.

She wanted to point out that she had learned the same information and wasn't being snarky, but then again Katie never was the snarky kind. That was always Elena's department. "Ugh." He scoffed and started playing with the hammer. "How long are you going to blame me for turning your birth mother into a vampire?"

"I'm not blaming you Damon. I've accepted the fact that you're a self serving psychopath with no redeeming qualities." Elena bit back.

Damon made a sound as if he had been burned. "Ouch."

"This isn't being very productive." Stefan stepped up seeing Katie glaring at Elena who didn't notice. "We're going to figure out a way to deal with Pearl and the vampires yeah?" Stefan asked Damon who just stood up and walked out.

"Okay, I need to shower and get to work." Katie pushed herself off of the couch then walked out.

* * *

Thanks to the rain business was slow so when Tyler and his Dad came in, she was able to play pool with him. "How have you worked here for so long and not learned how to play pool?" Tyler asked as he leaned over and took his shot.

"Who says I'm not just pretending to suck?" She asked examining the table looking for an easy shot.

"Yeah, I don't think so." He told her with a shake of his head.

Katie found her shot and leaned over, lining the pool cue up then took her shot, the ball that she had intended on sinking didn't go in. She stood up and wrinkled her nose with an ashamed smile. "Okay so I suck."

Tyler shook his head at her then walked around and wrapped his arm around her waist. "Then let me show you."

Katie bit her lip as she leaned over the table as he leaned down with her, helping her line up the cue. "Who's that woman with your dad?" She asked noticing mayor Lockwood smiling at the woman across the table from him.

"She's not my mom that's for sure." He said as he lined her cue up where it needed to be. "Try that." Katie took the shot, sinking the ball into the corner pocket. They stood up and Katie turned to Tyler to see him giving his dad a dirty look.

She wanted to ask him if he felt like talking about it, but someone was seated in her section. "I have to get back to work." She told him with a frown. "But I get a break in twenty. Wanna have dinner if you're still here?"

Tyler looked at his dad. "I'm sure I'll still be here."

Katie slid between him and his view of his father. "Your dad's an ass, your mom deserves better and I could really use a kiss." She told him as she placed her hand on his neck. Tyler kissed her on her lips keeping it short and sweet since he didn't feel like getting a lecture about pda later.

* * *

Katie and Tyler were halfway through dinner when Mayor Lockwood walked over and touched Tyler's back getting his attention. "Grab your stuff we've got to go."

"We kind of have half a burger left." Tyler argued at his dad grabbed his coat off the rack by the doors.

"They found Vicki Donovan." His dad informed them.

"Oh god." Katie whispered.

"Are you serious?" Tyler asked as he stood up. Katie noticed Jeremy walk over. "Where was she?"

"The storm unearthed the grave off county road. They just brought her body down to the morgue." He answered not looking or sounding at all affected by what he was saying.

"Wait. She's dead?" Jeremy asked.

"Come on we've got to go." The mayor urged.

Tyler looked at Katie, "Go, go. I'll catch up to you later." She told him and he nodded then followed his father out.

Katie found her manager and told her what was going on and got the green light to leave. She got a text from Caroline, telling her what was going on and asking her to bring coffee, creamer and sugar to Matt's. So she stopped by the store and picked up what Caroline asked her to get along with Styrofoam cups and swizzle sticks and headed to Matt's.

The sheriff let her in and she headed to the kitchen to put the supplies away when she saw Tyler sitting at the dining table with Jeremy. When he saw her he stood up and started helping her put things away. When they were done she grabbed his hands and pulled him in for a hug. She felt like shit because she'd known that Vicki was dead for months. "I'm going to go pay my respects. Are you going to need a ride home?"

"Yeah. My dad dropped me off." Tyler answered.

"What about you?" Katie asked Jeremy.

"Na, Elena's on her way. Thanks though." He replied flatly.

After awkwardly paying her respects to Kelly and Matt, she headed back into the kitchen to find Tyler sitting at the dining table in deep thought. She sat down next to him and slid her hand across his shoulders. He blinked over at her and she gave him a weak smile. A few minutes later sheriff Forbs came in and announced that it was time to give the Donovan's some space.

The drive to Tyler's house was silent, neither of them knowing what to say to the other. When they pulled up in front of his house Katie killed the car and got out, walking hand in hand with him to the door. "I sorry. I suck in times like these." She sighed. "All I know to say is you have an ear right here if you need one." She pointed to her ear and he gave her a small smile. "Any time day or night."

"I don't know what to say either. Still feel like it's not real. Like it's just a bad dream." He said with a shake of his head.

Tyler grabbed her and pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Tyler." They heard his mom say from the doorway. They pulled away from each other, Katie couldn't make herself look at Carol. "It's late. Come inside."

Katie cupped his cheek in her hand, "Try to get some sleep, okay?"

"Okay." He told her with a nod and a tight lipped smile.

Katie finally made herself look at Carol and say, "Goodnight, Mrs. Lockwood."

"Good night, Katie." Carol replied as Katie turned away and headed to her car. Katie was surprised to find there was no snooty undertone to her words.

* * *

Not wanting to bother Elena with a late phone call Katie went to Stefan's room and since the door was open let herself inside "Stefan I hate to...whoa." she said as she took in the blood bags laying around the room. Then her eyes landed on him looking up at her with blood on his face and it looked like he had been crying. "Are you okay?" She asked as she slowly started to walk closer to him.

"No, no, no. Don't come any closer." He told her and she stopped. "I could hurt you."

"Why are you drinking human blood?" She asked remembering what Damon had told her about him and drinking from humans.

"Damon hasn't told you?" He asked and Katie shook her head and shrugged.

"Katie get out of here." She heard Damon say and she looked behind her and shook her head no. "I'm serious. He really could hurt you right now. I'll fill you in later, just go."

"You're here, and I started drinking vervain." Katie told Damon then looked at Stefan, "He won't hurt me." She kept a rag in her back pocket when she was at work, and she pulled it out as she walked over to Stefan and sat down in front of him. "I want _you_ to tell me what happened." She said as she gingerly took the empty blood bag out of his hand and replaced it with the rag.

"After you and Elena left I went hunting. Some of the tomb vampires got the jump on me, took me back to their farm house and started torturing me." He said looking more like he was staring through her instead of at her. Katie took the rag from Stefan since he wasn't cleaning his mouth with it. She looked at the doorway to see that Damon was gone. "Damon, Alaric and Elena got me out. Damon and Alaric kept the others busy while Elena got me to the car, but Frederick, the vampire from the other night, intercepted us and staked me. Elena stabbed him with a vervain dart and fed me her blood."

"She fed you her blood?" Katie asked with raised brows. "Does she know that you have tendency to rip people apart when you feed on them?"

Stefan gave her a pained look. "No and I didn't know you knew."

Katie shrugged. "It kinda just came up when I was questioning Damon on the difference between animal and human blood."

"I don't want her to know." He told Katie as she stood up and went to his bathroom to wet the rag. "You can't tell her."

Katie walked back into the room and handed him the rag. "Wipe your mouth or I will."

He took it from her and started cleaning his face. "I'm serious Katie you can't tell her about this she'll think it's her fault."

"I promise, Stefan, I won't tell her." she took the rag from him and wiped a few spots of blood that he'd missed. "Be honest with me, please. How bad is this?"

"It's really, really bad." He told her looking like he was going to start crying. "And Damon killed the one person who could always put me back on the wagon."

"Lexi?" Katie asked and Stefan nodded. "Maybe, since you don't want Elena to know about this, I can help you?"

"No." he shook his head and moved to sit on the couch he had been leaning against. "Lexi was a vampire, I couldn't sink me teeth into her when I started losing it."

"You would bite me knowing that I have vervain in my system?" Katie asked.

"No, but I could easily rip your head off." He said and she took a slow deep breath trying to figure out how to help him.

She let it out and stood up. "So there's nothing I can do to help you?" Katie asked and Stefan shook his head no. "And Damon's… Damon, so he's not going to even try." She said out loud.

"Nope, I have to figure this out for myself." Stefan told her with a shake of his head.

"Okay, well, you know where I'm at if you ever need to talk." She told him then picked up the empty blood bags and headed down stairs. She ran into Damon in the kitchen. "So you and my history teacher, a man you killed, rescued Stefan today?" Katie asked as she threw the blood bags in the trash. "How'd you get him to help?"

"I told him that Pearl would know where Isobel is." He answered as he grabbed a blood bag out of the fridge. "It was a lie, obviously." He rolled his eyes and gave her a smirk. "So you really think I won't help my brother out of this whole binge drinking mess Elena got him into?" he asked as he ripped the corner off of the bag and poured the blood into a glass.

"You love for him to be miserable." She pointed out as she went to one of the over head cabinets and grabbed a cup of noodles. "He's miserable."

"Yes he is." He smiled as he threw away the blood bag. But when he looked at Katie his smiled fell. "It's not safe, you living here. I thought I could protect you, but after last night and now Stefan…"

Katie filled a tea kettle with water then put it on the stove. "I know. I'm not going to make it till February." She turned the stove on then turned to him and crossed her arms over her chest. "As much as I don't want to ask you to, will you compel my grandfather into letting me move back in?"

"Katie." He sighed her name and set down his glass of blood. "You once told me that you would probably do anything if I asked you too." He took her face in his hands as he leaned down and looked her in the eyes. "That's a two way street." He kissed her forehead then pushed her away.

"Thank you." she told him as the kettle started whistling. "Since you're going to be compelling him anyway, can you also make him give me my old room back?" she asked as she took the kettle off and poured some water over the noodles. "Grandpa took it and moved me into my dad's office when he moved in."

"Now you're just being greedy." He told her with a smirk and she rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, any more requests?" he asked, as he finished off his glass of blood.

"Yeah, how do I spike my drinks with vervain?" she asked sheepishly.

"You liar." He gasped in fake shock. "You totally don't have vervain in your system do you?"

"No, but it worked did it not?" she asked. "He didn't bite me."

"No, but he'd also just binged and probably wasn't starving. Don't pull that again." Damon rolled his eyes and told her where to find the vervain oil down stairs. Then they both turned in for the night.

**A/N:** Reviews, follows and favorites are always welcome and highly appreciated.


	14. Chapter 14

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 14**

Katie put on a black dress and matching flats then picked Tyler up and headed to Vicki's funeral. They got to the church early and were sitting outside when Katie decided she could no longer stand the silence. "So, what do you think Vicki would think about you being with me?" Katie asked not knowing what else to talk about.

He just shook his head. "She probably wouldn't care. I treated her like crap." He said as he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. "Kinda feels like I don't even have the right to miss her." he said with a shake of his head as he looked down at his hands.

Katie leaned forward mimicking his position. "Did you care about her?" Katie asked and he looked at her to see that she wasn't jealous or judging, just asking a simple question.

"I did." He admitted. "I just never showed it because I knew my parents didn't like her."

She wanted to point out that his parents didn't like her either, but he was still good to her. Instead of questioning him about it she tried to make him feel better. "Then you have every right to grieve her." Katie assured him.

When the funeral was over Katie drove Tyler home, walked with him to his door and gave him a hug and a kiss. She was walking away from the house when Carol called, "Katie." She stopped and turned back to see Carol walking over to her so she met her half way.

"Yes ma'am?" Kate asked, wondering what she'd done wrong this time.

"I know we got off on the wrong foot, finding you in bed with my son…" she wrinkled her nose and gave her head a slow shake at the memory, "was kind of a shock, but Tyler explained how your grandfather treats you and that he was just giving you a safe place for the night. I realized after I calmed down that you were fully clothed and on top of the blankets." Katie had her hands behind her back, picking at her cuticles. "I want you to understand that it's not going to happen again."

"Yes ma'am. I completely understand." Katie replied taking her hands from behind her back to swing them nervously at her sides. "It won't happen again."

"That being said, I wanted to thank you for being there for Tyler through all this Vicki stuff." She told her with a small smile. "It means a lot."

"It's really no big deal." She told her with an awkward shrug.

"Regardless, I appreciate it." she told her again. "Anyway, don't be a stranger, okay? You're welcome here anytime and if you need to get away from your grandfather on occasion you can use our guest room."

"Wow, really?" Katie asked a little shocked.

"Really." Carol told her with a polite smile.

"Thank you."

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Damon asked as they pulled up to Katie's house.

She took in a deep breath looking at her childhood home through the passenger window of the moving truck that Damon was driving. "We've already packed up my stuff and the queen bed frame that you insisted I take even though I would be fine with my old twin bed. I'm doing this."

"Okay." Damon pushed his door open and they both got out and headed to the house. Her grandpa wasn't home at the moment so Katie grabbed the hide-a-key rock out of the fake plant on the front porch and opened the door for them.

"Actually I change my mind. I want my parent's room." She said as she led him to the room her grand father had made his and opened the door. It was twice the size of her old room and had it's own separate bathroom.

"Okay no problem." He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Let's get to work." By the time her grandfather got home from work they had moved his stuff to her father's old office, the smallest room in the house, and moved all of Katie's things into her parent's bedroom.

Her grandfather walked in to see them sitting on his couch, both of them drinking his beer. "What the hell are you doing in my house?" He asked glaring at Katie and Damon.

Damon hopped up and walked over to the old, too buff, too tan man with a snarl of a smile and clapped his hand down on his shoulder. "Katie, wanna go up to your new room while the old man and I have a little chat?"

"Gladly." Katie answered and took her beer upstairs with her, taking a swig of it as she passed her grandpa.

After ten or so minutes Damon came upstairs and plopped down on the bed. "It's done." He tucked his hands behind his head. "He won't bother you and I even told him to let Tyler stay the night if you want him too."

"What?" Katie asked looking at him with big eyes. "Why would you do that? You hate me being with Tyler."

"Yeah, but I like you more than I hate him." He said with a shrug as he got up and headed for the door.

"Hey." Katie called making him stop and look back at her. She walked over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Thank you."

"Anytime Katie Cat." He told her as she let go of him. "Or am I still not allowed to call you that?" He asked with a playful quirk of his brows and a smirk.

"I think you've earned back the rights to the nickname." She told him with a small smile.

"And you better not have changed my name in your phone." He grabbed the door frame as he walked further out, still looking at her.

"I haven't, but if Tyler sees it I'll have no choice." She warned him.

"Yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes and walked off.

* * *

Katie headed down stairs and her grandfather, who had been sitting in his recliner, saw her dressed in a tight, navy blue dress with a lace back that stopped at her waist line and heals and he got up. "Where are you going?"

She stopped at the door and turned to look at him. "The founder's kick off party. I'm hoping to make it onto the Miss Mystic Falls court, so I have to attend all of these stupid parties." She explained, trying with every bone in her body to play nice.

"Oh, well, have a good time and don't get into trouble." He told her as he stumbled back to his chair. Katie tilted her head at him, finding it odd that he had nothing bad to say, then assumed Damon had compelled him to not say bad things to her anymore.

"You used to drag me to all of these events when I was a kid, why don't you go anymore?" she asked out of pure curiosity.

"Big bad Mayor Lockwood decided that he's too good to be friends with me. So I said fuck him." He answered talking with his hands while holding his beer in one.

"Right, well, goodnight." Katie told him finding the whole exchange between them to be off putting.

When she got to the party she found Tyler and his father talking to Matt and Kelly. When Tyler saw her she gave him a smile and a small wave. When he and his father were done talking to the grieving family Tyler walked around to the bar that Katie knew was on the other side of the wall the walked back around with a bottle of alcohol in his hand. "Check it out!" he whisper yelled as he walked over to Katie and Matt.

"Dude, your dad's going to totally beat you down if he catches you." Matt said as the two of them started walking off.

"Yeah, let him try." Tyler said as he took the cap off of the bottle.

"Alright, screw it." Matt took the bottle from Tyler and took a swig.

Tyler looked behind him to see that Katie wasn't following them, but instead stood where she had been since she saw him. "Hey, come on, booze…distracted parents…fun…this way." He told her not moving from where he stood near Matt.

"Yeah, that's…not really my thing." She said with a wrinkled nose and a shake of her head.

He finally walked over to her, "Come on, it's not like I'm asking you to get high with me, it's just alcohol."

Katie couldn't help but notice that he hadn't told her hi, or kissed her or anything and it was really bugging her even though she knew it was a stupid thing to be mad about. "Look, Tyler, I just somehow got your mom to like me. I'm not going to screw that up by getting caught drinking with you at your parent's party."

"God, you really are a goody, goody. Go kiss my moms ass. I'm gonna go have fun." He told her with a hard face and a glare then started walking away.

"Tyler, come on, don't be like that." she called but he kept on walking.

Damon walked by and saw Katie looking down at the floor with a frown on her face. "Hey," Katie's eyes shot up to him and she forced the displeased look off of her face. "You okay?" he walked over looking around for Tyler. "Where's your boyfriend?"

"I'm fine and I don't want to talk about it." she answered as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm gonna go home." She tried to walk around him, but he grabbed her upper arm, gently stopping her. "Damon, please let me go."

He moved to stand in front of her and let go of her arm. "You didn't get all dressed up and spend…" he looked over her hair and make up, "and hour in front of the mirror just to leave twenty minutes into the party." She just looked at him blankly. She was hiding the fact that she wanted to cry and Damon felt like finding Tyler and ripping his head off. Instead he held his hand out to her. "Dance with me."

"Damon, I-"

"Just one dance." He cut her off. "Then you can go find your boyfriend and give him a piece of your mind." She couldn't say no to the pleading look in his eyes.

"Fine, one dance." She told him with a small smile and a nod.

1901 by phoenix started playing when they walked over to the bar where Elena stood watching Stefan dancing to the up beat song with Kelly. "Have I entered an alternate universe where Stefan is fun?" Damon asked Elena.

"Is he drunk?" Katie asked with raised brows.

"Yes." Elena and Damon answered at the same time.

"Is he going to be okay?" Elena asked Damon.

"Eventually." Elena just looked at him then back at Stefan. "One way or another." He looked at Katie and jerked his head to the dance floor. "Let's dance."

"No, no, no. I agreed to dance with you when there was slow music playing." Katie argued. "I don't know how to dance to this."

"I'll show you, come on." He grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor.

She was on the dance floor with Damon when Tyler walked in. All his eyes could see was Damon's hands on her hips as they moved to the music and the way Damon was looking at her ass in the tight dress. He had been looking for her to apologize for treating her the way he had, but she looked just fine without him. So he snuck a glass of vodka from the bar and walked off.

When the song was over Damon excused himself from her and she moved to the bar to people watch. Elena and Matt were dancing when Stefan cut in. Shortly after Katie watched as Elena bumped into a guy then Stefan made the guy apologize twice and shoved him. Stefan was walking away as Damon walked up beside Katie and asked the bartender for bourbon. "I'll totally sneak you a drink if you want it." He offered, holding up his drink to her.

"I said no to Tyler. I'm not going to say yes to you." Katie replied and pushed the drink away.

"Wait he ditched you because you didn't want to drink?" He asked with a disbelieving look.

"With him and Matt and risk getting caught, yeah." Katie added with a nod.

"The kids an _idiot_." He told her and she couldn't help but love the way his mouth moved when he said the word idiot.

"He's not an idiot. He's a normal teen boy just looking to have fun with his fuddy duddy of a girlfriend." She argued.

"Hey." Damon said dipping his head into her line of view to get her to look him in the eyes, "You're not a fuddy duddy."

"Have you noticed what your brothers been up to?" Elena asked as she walked over to stand on the other side of Damon and took an olive off of the tray on the bar.

"Nope I've been too preoccupied with yours." Damon replied as he turned his head to look at her.

"I'm gonna go find Tyler." Katie said then walked away. She had been looking for him for a while when she ran into Matt. "Hey, have you seen Tyler?"

"No, have you seen my mom?" Matt asked.

"No, wanna join forces?" Katie asked.

"Sure, why not?" He sighed and they started walking the house over. "Have you looked outside?"

Katie shook her head no and they headed out back Katie looked one way and Matt looked the other. Her heart dropped to her feet when her eyes landed on Kelly's hands and lips on Tyler's face. "Tyler?" Katie asked making Matt look at his mom and Tyler making out with each other.

"What the hell are you doin' man?" Matt yelled as he rushed over and pulled Tyler back.

"Dude, calm down." Tyler said with his hands held up in surrender, but Matt punched him in the face, starting a fist fight that knocked Kelly to the ground as Tyler tackled Matt and started wailing on him. "Tyler! Tyler stop it!" Katie yelled at him, but it fell on deaf ears. "Somebody help!" Katie yelled and soon Alaric ran over and pulled Tyler off of Matt. With Tyler out of the way Katie went to Matt and kneeled down next to him. "Matt..." Katie sighed taking in his bloody face as Tyler's dad urged him back inside.

"I'm so sorry." Matt said with a shake of his head.

"You have nothing to apologize for." Katie told him with a sigh as she stood up and held her hand out to him.

She was pulling Matt to his feet when Elena ran out of the house and over to Matt and Katie. "Oh my god, Matt, what happened are you okay?"

Katie pulled Elena back a little as she whispered. "Keep him out if the house and away from Stefan." Elena gave her friend a nod. "I'm going to go get a wet rag or something."

Katie got a wet rag from one of the bathrooms then gave it to Elena and Matt. Since Elena had Matt covered Katie went back inside. She was sitting in an empty office, watching the fire in the fireplace when Tyler found her. "What are you doing in here?" He asked as he came inside and closed the door.

"I needed to get away for a minute and try to figure out what to say to you." She answered turning her hurt eyes on him.

"I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me." He said as he came over and sat down next to her.

"I know you are. It's written all over your face." She told him as she examined his wide, sad eyes.

"You have all right to break up with me." He told her looking down at her hand on the couch between them.

"Is that why you did it? To get me to break up with you so you don't have to?" She asked.

"I did it because I saw you dancing with Damon." He answered going from ashamed to pissed in the blink of an eye.

"Wow." Katie blinked at him. "Damon is my friend, Tyler, and if you and I are going to make this work," she motioned between the two of them, "then you are going to have to trust me when I tell you that you are the only guy I want to be with."

"How am I supposed to believe that when he constantly looks at you like he wants to eat you?" Tyler asked.

"Because that's _him_ looking at _me_, not the other way around." She answered. "Besides, I wouldn't have been dancing with him at all if you hadn't ditched me to get wasted with Matt." Tyler just glared at her for a few seconds then looked away. "Look," Katie stood up and looked down at him. "We've both obviously gotten pissed at each other and lashed out like stupid little kids. Why don't we take a break for a few days? Try to figure out if we even still want there to be an us."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Tyler said with a glare at her as he stood up then left the room.

She walked out of the room to see that people were gathering to hear Mayor Lockwood make his kick off speech. So not wanting to be rude and leave before the speech Katie joined everyone that was gathered around. "Are you okay?" she heard someone asked her quietly while John Gilbert made his speech, and looked over to see Alaric standing to her left.

"I'm fine." She told him with a polite smile.

"You just caught your boyfriend making out with his best friend's mom. You can't be fine." He told her and she looked away from him.

"You know too much about your student's personal lives." She whispered to him.

"Only the ones involved with vampires." He whispered back.

"Look at his right hand." Damon said to Alaric as he moved to stand on his other side.

"Whose?" Alaric asked sounding like he really didn't care.

"The town's favorite son. Look at his ring." Damon said and looked at Alaric then noticed Katie standing beside him with her arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face.

Katie looked at John's ring as he pulled the rope, ringing the kick off bell. "That looks like mine." Alaric said aloud.

"Yeah, and that would be a big coincidence if he hadn't just come back from the dead _five minutes ago_." Damon said whispering the last three words.

"You killed him?" Katie asked and Damon hummed a positive answer. "Too bad he didn't stay dead. I hate that guy."

Alaric turned his head to Katie giving her a disapproving look and she just shrugged with a 'what' face. "Where the hell did you get that ring?" Damon asked taking Alaric's attention off of her.

"Isobel, my wife." He answered.

Damon laughed. "Who gave birth to Elena under the medical care of the esteemed Dr. Grayson Gilbert, _John's brother_." Damon whispered.

"You think John knew Isobel?" Alaric asked.

"I think John knows a lot of things." Damon answered.

"Okay, I'm leaving. See you two later." She said as she gave them both a forced smile and headed out.

When she walked into her front door she saw her grandfather passed out in his recliner. With a scoff she left him there, grabbed a bottle of his Jack Daniels out of the kitchen cabinet and headed up stairs to her room. Feeling tired, hurt and like a hypocrite for being mad at Tyler for kissing someone who wasn't her when she had kissed Damon, she sat down at her desk and uncapped the bottle.

Green eyes stared back at her in the mirror that hung on the wall in front of her and she turned them down to the sparkling pendant that rested on her chest as she tilted her head back and took a drink. Thinking about Damon and what Tyler had said about him, she picked it up and looked down at it. The sapphire star sparkled up at her as if it was judging her for being with Tyler when her heart was so clearly with Damon.

But she didn't want to be with Damon. She wanted to be happy with someone else, with Tyler. Up until tonight he had been so sweet to her, but she couldn't help wondering if he had made up his mind that he couldn't be better to a girl, he couldn't make it up to Vicki by being with Katie. "Thinking about me?" She heard Damon behind her and turned around to see him sitting on her bed with one of her pillows in his lap.

"No, Tyler, actually." She told him as she let go of the pendant, grabbed the bottle and moved to sit on the bed with him.

"Did you two break up?" he asked as he put the pillow behind his head and laid back.

"We're taking a break." She corrected as she put her lips to the bottle and tilted her head back.

"You know that's better on ice right?" he asked with a nod to the bottle.

"It won't stay on the ice long enough to make a difference." She said as she wiped her lips. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to let you know to stay clear of John Gilbert. He pretty much threatened to hurt you if I step out of line." He said as he sat up and grabbed the bottle from her.

"Hey!" she said as she tried to grab it back, but he dodged her and took a drink. "Give it back."

"There's a reason I prefer bourbon." He said as he handed her the bottle back. "And you know it's not good to drink alone?" he asked as she took another drink.

"Better alone than with you." she said recalling the last time she got drunk.

"Come on, you're on a break. Your allowed." He told her with a seductive look that he knew she wouldn't be able to resist.

"That's not what a break is for." She shook her head.

"Sure it is." He argued as he sat up and took the bottle from her again. This time she didn't protest. "Back to why I came here." He paused to take a drink then handed her the bottle back. "John knows too much."

"How much is too much?" Katie asked before she tilted the bottle back then swallowed and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, driving Damon crazy.

"Everything and more." Damon took the bottle from her and took another drink. "He knows about Katherine, about me opening the tomb to find her that she wasn't in there to begin with he knows…everything."

Katie took the bottle from him and took a bigger drink than usual. "Why don't you just cut his ring off and kill him?" she frowned at the words that just left her mouth. "God you're a bad influence."

Damon rolled his eyes and took the bottle from her knowing that if she didn't stop she was going to be hugging the toilet pretty soon. "Don't blame me." He told her then took a drink. "If I kill him, everything he knows is going to get leaked to the council and he will have you killed. It's bed enough that those tomb vamps are getting too much attention from them and now with Stefan on the fritz…"

"How is he by the way? He disappeared tonight." She asked trying to take the bottle from him but he pulled it away. "Gimme it, Damon."

"Nope." he told her and she made a grab for it and fell into his lap. He smirked down at her head on his legs.

She sighed and pushed herself back into a sitting position with her legs tucked to the side so she wouldn't be indecent in the dress that she still wore. "Fine, keep it."

"He's not coping well at all and if he doesn't get it under control he's going to bring the council down on us with no help from John." He said then took a drink from the bottle.

"He's not going to hurt Elena is he?" she asked looking tired as she stood up, but stumbled in her heels even though they were the thick kind.

"No, but you might hurt yourself if you don't take those shoes off." he said and she sat on the side of the bed and took off her shoes, letting them fall to the floor with a thump.

With them out of the way she walked over to her closet and grabbed a tank top, then a pair of shorts out of the dresser. "Unzip me?" Katie asked, sweeping her waves to the side as she turned her back on him.

"With pleasure." He answered as he stood up and placed his hand on her shoulder as the other one pulled the zipper down her back.

She sighed as his hands slipped the straps from her shoulders and the top fell to gather around her hips, the bottom of the dress too tight to fall off her body. A laugh betrayed her when he grabbed the bottom of the dress and jerked it down. "Hey, easy this stupid thing wasn't exactly cheap."

"If it's stupid why did you buy it?" he asked as she turned around, covering her chest with her arms.

"Because I've worn all my other dresses to public events twice and that's my limit." She explained as she turned from him and grabbed her tank top. "Plus I thought it would get Tyler all hot and bothered." She sighed and grabbed her shorts.

"Oh it got someone all hot and bothered, but it wasn't Tyler." He told her in a deep voice as he grabbed her hips and pulled her against him, the evidence pressed into her rear.

"Damon…" she sighed fighting her desires. "I can't… I'm too drunk and I'm with Tyler." Her body defied her words as she leaned back against him, dropped her shorts and lifted her arm to grab the back of his head.

"Drunk sex is the best." He told her as he started kissing her neck. "And you're on a break, you're allowed."

"Son of a bitch." She growled, coming to her senses as she turned in his arms and pushed him away. "I can't, Damon. Stop trying to get me to be somebody that I'm not!"

"I'm trying to get you to realize that you don't belong with him!" Damon yelled back. "Figure out who you want and stop leading us on."

"I will when you will." She told him with a flared nostril glare.

He whooshed out of her open window without another word.


	15. Chapter 15

**Phoenix Rising**  
**Ch. 15**

Katie sat in her car in the school parking lot catching up on homework that she had failed to do when she saw Stefan drive up in an old, but very well taken care of sports car with the music blaring. He was throwing caution to the wind, tossing a big red flag in the air that Elena clearly didn't see since the two of them kissed then Elena walked off with a smile on her face. Katie tucked her finished homework into her bag then walked over to meet Stefan at his car. "You're not being inconspicuous." Katie said as he quickly closed the trunk and turned to her with a smile on his face. "You're not okay are you?" she asked with and appraising glare.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He told her with a tight lipped smile as he pushed the strap of his backpack higher on his shoulder.

"I'm not Elena, Stefan, I'm not going to let you lie to me. You're not acting like yourself." She told him as she placed her hand on the trunk and gave him a 'talk to me' look.

"I'm fine." He told her with a look that told her to stop asking questions.

"Look, I'm not going to tell Elena, but if you're not doing okay you need to talk to somebody. Let me be that somebody." She asked and he just took his sunglasses out of the neck of his shirt and put them on. "Okay. I'm not going to beg you to talk to me, but you can't say I didn't try to be there for you." she sighed and started walking with him to the school in silence.

When they walked into history and took a seat both Elena and Alaric gave her a questioning look. "Katie, what are you doing here I thought I had you in fifth period."

"They changed my schedule, something about there being too many people in period one Spanish." She shrugged and he started looking at a stack of papers on his desk.

"Ah, I over looked that notice." He told her then looked up to see two other kids walk in and take a seat only leaving one seat available in the room. "Which explains why you two are here."

"Okay, this week we're going to set aside our regular curriculum for a lesson in local history as we approach founder's day." Mr. Saltzman started. "Apparently the community leaders feel that's more important than world war two. But hey, what do I know?"

He was interrupted by Bonnie walking through the door. "Sorry I'm late." She told him as she shut the door.

"Looks like we'll be at full occupancy today. Welcome home, Bonnie." Alaric said as Bonnie took a seat. He started talking but Katie wasn't paying attention. Instead she gave Bonnie a smile that went unreturned. She brushed off Elena and Stefan too.

She and Elena gave each other 'what's up with her?' look then turned their eyes to their teacher. Bonnie was the first one out the door when class was over.

Elena and Katie tried several attempts throughout the day to talk to Bonnie, but she kept slipping away. It wasn't until after school that they managed to catch her on the way to her car. "Bonnie," Katie called and Bonnie stopped walking, "hey, how are you?"

"Yeah how's the family?" Elena added.

"We're dealing. It's been hard." Bonnie answered understandably vague.

"We all really missed you." Elena said as she pushed the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder.

"Yeah I just had so much to deal with after Grams funeral, and honestly after you told me that the tomb spell failed, I just really didn't want to come back." she told them.

Katie looked at Elena, "You told her over the phone?"

"I wanted her to know before she came home." Elena defended herself then turned back to Bonnie. "I hope you understand why I told you."

"I understand why. I just wish I didn't know." Bonnie's eyes turned a little cold as she looked at her two friends.

"Bonnie!" They heard Caroline say as she ran over and scooped Bonnie up in a hug making her smile. "Thank god you're home." She let go of Bonnie just as fast as she scooped her up. "I know we talked everyday, but I missed you. How are you doing?" Caroline asked in a whirlwind.

"Better, better. You know, just glad to be back. Trying to keep myself busy." Bonnie said giving Caroline more words than she had Elena and Katie.

"Well, I can help with that." Caroline said with a smile on her face. "Major wardrobe confab needed asap. You need to help me pick the perfect dress for the founder's court."

"The founder's court?" Elena asked. "Did I miss something?"

"The founder's court. You know, Miss Mystic Falls." Caroline told her like she should already know what she was talking about. "They announced it today and um, you and I and Katie are on it."

"Oh, my god, we signed up for that so long ago. I completely forgot." Elena replied

"So are you dropping out then?" Caroline asked sounding a little too hopeful.

"I can't." Elena said as she sank back into herself a little bit.

"No?" Caroline asked confused.

"Her mom is the one who wanted her to enter." Bonnie explained.

The three girls shared a look. "Hey, Katie," Tyler called from behind her and she looked over her shoulder to see him standing a few feet behind her with his hands in his pockets, "can we talk?"

"Yeah." She told him then looked at her friends. "I'll see you guys later." They walked away as Tyler walked up to her. "What's up?"

"I know you said you wanted to take a break for a few days, but I don't need a few days." He told her.

She pushed the strap of her bag up her shoulder. "Okay, so what does that mean?" she asked as she started walking to her car.

"It mean's that I don't want to break up with you." he told her as she came to her car.

She opened the driver's door and tossed her bag into the passenger seat. "Good, because I don't want to break up with you either." She told him and he smiled. "But," she held up her finger stopping him from being too happy too soon, "if this is going to work both of us need to make a few changes."

"Like what?" he asked with a sigh.

"Like I'm going to stop dancing with guys who aren't you." she started.

"And what change do I have to make?" he asked with pursed lips.

"You need to realize that I'm not the kid of girl that parties and gets drunk at public events. A bonfire, a random kegger in the woods…alone in my room with you…?" she said as she hooked her finger into the collar of his button up shirt and pulled him a little closer. "Sure, but I'm not going to be stupid and ruin my chances for a scholarship." He smirked down at her finger in his shirt. "Is that cool with you or is it a deal breaker?"

"It's cool." He told her as his smirk turned onto a smile. "You care about your future, I get it."

"Does that mean you'll be my escort for the Miss Mystic Falls founder's pageant?" she asked with a hopeful smile.

"You made the court?" he asked with a smile and raised brows

"Why do you look so surprised?" she asked with a small laugh.

"Well, because my mom is over that." He said with a tilt of his head.

"Regardless, I'm on it and I need an escort." She told him getting back on topic. "So will you?"

"Yes, I will learn the stupid dance and everything." He told her with a smile as he leaned in and pinned her between him and the open door of her car. She placed her hand on his chest and kissed him.

"Wanna help me find a dress?" she asked with another hopeful smile when the kiss broke.

"No, hard pass." He told her shake of his head.

"Okay fine." She sighed then pulled him back in for a kiss.

* * *

She was sitting at the bar at work, slacking off while writing what she was going to say when the judges did their whole, we want to get to know you before picking a winner, thing when she felt someone touch her shoulder making her jump and almost fall off of the stool. "Whoa there Katie Cat, didn't mean to scare you." Damon laughed while pulling her back onto the stool. "What are you concentrating so hard on?" he asked as he sat down and slid the paper across the bar and began to read it. "While I haven't helped the community first hand I have had a part in the-"

"Give me that back." Katie said trying to take it from him, but he lifted it high in the air and kept reading.

"go green campaign at school and made several donations to the M.F. beautification committee and the rec. center soup kitchen. My plans for the future are to go to Duke university and become a pediatrician." She finally managed to get it from him and stuff it in her bag to be worked on later. "What is that?"

"The speech I'm going to give the founders court judges." She told him as she walked around the bar and made him a glass of bourbon on the rocks.

"A pediatrician huh?" he asked as she slid him the glass.

"It's what I put on the paper when I signed up." She shrugged. "I didn't think I would actually make it. Now I have to buy yet another dress and heels and I have no idea what's appropriate for this kind of thing." She complained with a sigh. She saw Damon looking her up and down. "What?"

"Blue, one shoulder, flowy with one of those sparkly belts on the waist." He suggested, wiggling his fingers at her waist.

"I can't wear blue, Elena's claimed that color." She argued.

"Then red." He suggested.

"Really, a red dress with red hair?" she asked with a point to her ponytail.

"Wine red, it won't clash." He explained and she gave him an odd look. "I enjoy looking at women and I happen to pick up on what looks good on them. Don't judge me." He told her with a smirk as he leaned across the bar.

"Not judging." She said holding her hands up in surrender. "Just appreciating."

"Get back to work and stop breaking the law before they fire you." he told her with a jerk of his head to a couple that had been seated in her section when he walked in who were looking impatient.

"Crap." She said as she walked around the bar pulling the notepad out of her apron pocket as she did.

A few hours later, Bonnie came in a sat in Katie's section without realizing it. "Hey, what can I get for you?" she asked not getting even a small smile of a greeting out of her friend Bonnie told her what she wanted in the most uncaring unhappy voice in the world. "Are you made at me for something?" she asked not caring that this was keeping her from the work she was supposed to be doing. "I mean, you barely spoke to me the whole time you were gone and then you come back and you won't even look me in the eyes. So if I've done something I need to know about it so I can fix it."

"You haven't done anything, so you can't fix it." Bonnie told her with a frown.

"But there is something wrong." Katie argued.

"Look, I can't just sit back and pretend that everything is fine. Grams died protecting us from those tomb vampires and they're out. So Grams died for nothing." Bonnie explained.

"Do you blame me for that?" Katie asked, confused.

"No, I blame them." Bonnie told her coldly. "Damon and Stefan."

"Still waiting for the part where you explain why you're cutting me out of your life." Katie said getting a little aggravated.

"You're friends with them, Katie." She said as she looked down at her hands. "I'm not going put you or Elena in a position where you have to choose sides."

"Okay then, consider me Switzerland." Katie stated making Bonnie look up at her. "I'm living with my grandfather again. I wasn't safe with the Salvatore's. So if you decide you still want to be my friend, you know where I'll be." Katie told her then walked away.

* * *

The next day she got in from work and went up to her room only to freeze in the doorway when her eyes landed on a wine red, chiffon, one shoulder dress with a thin line of rhinestones around the waist, hanging in her window. Matching red suede lace up shoes with thick, easy to dance on, heels sat on the floor beside it. She instantly pulled her phone out of her bag and called The Hotter Salvatore Brother. "Surprise and you're welcome." He answered with a smile in his voice.

"Damon Salvatore, I did not ask you to buy me a dress. I don't need your charity." She scolded him. Even though she loved the dress she couldn't accept it.

"It's not charity it's a gift." He argued as she walked over and looked at the price tag only to find that the price had been taken off of it.

"Damon I can't accept this." She argued back not being able to take her eyes off of it.

"Well, do you like it?" he asked ignoring her statement.

"No it's absolutely hideous and I will not wear it." she told him sternly.

He was quiet for a second before he said, "You almost had me there for a minute. You love it and you know it."

"Fine it's freaking beautiful, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't keep it." she argued.

"You can and you will. If I don't see you wearing it at the pageant I am going to be _very_ angry at you." he warned.

"Fine, I'll wear it." she gave in knowing there was no fighting him.

* * *

Katie, wearing her red heels, stood in the school cafeteria across from Tyler as his mom instructed them on the dance. "Honor your partner." She told them and they stepped up to each other and she curtsied as he bowed then they stepped back in line. "Let's focus, right hand around." They held up their hands and walked around each other. "Flirt with your eyes." She told them and Tyler gave her his best attempt at a flirty gaze making her crack a smile even though she was trying her best to be serious. "Left hand around." They did the same thing in the opposite direction. "Both hands." Katie was aware of Elena and Stefan talking throughout the whole lesson then Stefan grabbed Elena and twirled her around. "Oh, no. No, no, no, there's no touching during this part." Carol scolded the laughing couple. "It's about the simple intimacy of the near-touch." She told them then motioned for them to get back to it.

When they started waltzing Katie was surprised that Tyler had really good form. "You know how to dance?" she asked with a surprised smile.

"Have you _met_ my mom?" he asked with a glance at his mother. "She made me take dance lessons specifically for situations like this."

"Oh." She said with a head tilt.

"Little tip," he started, "stiffen your arms more and act like you have a pole up your ass."

She bit her lips holding back a laugh as she did what he told her. "Looking good guys." Carol told the couple with a smile as she walked by and touched her son's shoulder. Tyler gave Katie a cocky smirk.

* * *

The day of the pageant Katie went to a salon and used the money she had intended on buying a dress with to get her hair and nails done then went to the founder's hall with her dress, shoes and makeup bag in hand. The other girl's dresses were all already hung up in the dressing room, so Katie added hers then headed to the room where the girls were getting ready. Elena and Caroline gave her a smile when she walked in and sat down at one of the free vanities complete with a lighted mirror.

After putting on some subtle makeup Katie headed to the dressing room to put her dress on. She thought the dressing room was empty but instead she walked in on Damon and Elena. "Oops. Sorry I'll just uh," she stared backing out of the room, but Damon grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside. "What's going on?"

"We all need to talk." Damon told them as Katie walked over a grabbed her dress.

"Does it have to be right now?" Elena asked waving her dress at Damon.

"Normally I would have a completely different outlook on what I'm about to tell you," Damon started talking and Elena gave Katie a questioning look as her friend started unbuttoning her shirt. "Katie, I'm trying to concentrate here." Damon said with an interested look at Katie.

"And I'm trying to get dressed before I'm late." Katie argued.

"Anyways." Damon blinked rapidly and turned his eyes to Elena. "Since what I'm about to tell you could really inconvenience me, I'll… squeal."

"What are you talking about?" Elena asked still holding her dress in her hands while Katie slipped hers over her head.

"Stefan's still drinking human blood." Damon told her.

"Called it, but he refused to admit it to me." Katie said as she took her shorts off under the dress. "Someone wanna zip me?" she asked turning her back on to the two of them.

"What?" Elena asked and Katie knew she was talking to Damon.

"Yeah." Damon answered as he walked over and zipped up Katie's dress. She walked around Damon and sat down on the white couch in the room. "A month ago I would have rejoiced." Damon kept talking as he watched Katie switch her flip flops for the red heels. "But with the council back on the alert it is not a good time for Stefan to fly off the handle."

"I know he's been a little edgy, but he said that was normal." Elena argued with Damon then turned to look at Katie as she stood up and moved to look at herself in the mirror. "And you called it?" she asked her friend. "Why can't you just have a little faith in him?"

"It's not about faith, Elena, it's about seeing what's right in front of your face." Katie said as she straightened her dress.

"He has a fridge full of stolen blood bank contraband in the house." Damon told Elena making her sit down on the couch. "He has no idea what normal is. His entire existence isn't normal." Katie, seeing that the dress was as perfect as it was going to get turned from the mirror to look at her friends. "Normal to a vampire is drinking human blood. But he spent all this time fighting it when he should have been learning how to control it. and now it's controlling him instead."

"I can't believe it. I mean, it's Stefan we're talking about here." Elena said not wanting to accept what she was being told.

"Stefan on human blood, Elena." Damon argued. "He'll do anything, he'll say anything, because he's not going to want to stop."

"He had me keeping secrets from you." Katie spoke up as she moved to stand next to Damon.

He looked across his shoulder at her and looked her up and down. "You look _gorgeous_ by the way."

"Thank you." she told him with a smile.

"Wait what do you mean he had you keeping secrets from me?" Elena asked as she stood up.

"The night after you gave him your blood I walked in on him binging blood bags." Katie explained. "He made me promise not to tell you."

"Oh my god, this is all my fault. I'm the one who fed him the blood in the first place." Elena said as she started pacing the room.

"What's going on in here?" Stefan asked as he opened the dressing room door.

"Just…filling Elena and Katie in on your extracurricular activities." Damon answered as he turned to look at him. "Although I think Katie already had her suspicions."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Stefan said with a shake of his head.

"I know about the blood Stefan." Elena told him with one of her judgy little looks.

"We're just gonna...go." Damon said holding his hand out for Katie to come with him. She followed him out to see that the other girls were lining up to walk down the stairs.

Katie was third in the line up and as the first girls name was called Carol walked over to Katie with a smile on her face. "You look beautiful." She told her as she adjusted a curl that was framing Katie's face. "Good luck."

"Miss Katie Finnegan." Her name was called and suddenly Katie felt as if her heart was going to beat out of her chest.

She made herself take a deep breath and let it out then plastered a smile onto her face as she started walking down the curving stairs. The red chiffon of her dress flowed over the stairs behind her creating a beautiful contrast of white and red. However when Tyler and Damon's eyes landed on her neither of them were looking at her feet.

When Katie's eyes landed on Tyler's awe struck face her smile turned into one that lit up the room. Damon found himself frowning at the younger man as Katie took his hand and walked with him outside.

But when Katie saw Elena walk out with Damon instead of Stefan she felt a pang of jealousy shoot through her. Tyler cleared his throat reminding her that she was supposed to be keeping eye contact with him. So she looked at him and made herself forget about Damon and Elena. It wasn't hard once the music started playing and the two of them started the choreographed dance.

By the end of it she found herself only thinking about Tyler. "I really want to kiss you right now." Katie whispered to him as he escorted her to the stage.

"Save it for when you win." Tyler told her as he let go of her hand and went to stand in the crowd.

"Where's Amber?" She heard Caroline ask Elena and Katie realized that they had been missing a girl and an escort.

"Before I crown the winner," Mayor Lockwood said as he walked up to stand on the corner of the stage, "I would like to offer a personal thank you to all of these young ladies for their efforts to better our community." Katie put on a close lipped, polite, but genuine smile as everyone clapped. "So without further ado," Katie's heart raced with anticipation, "it is my honor to announce our very own Miss Mystic Falls...Miss Caroline Forbs!" The Mayor motioned to Caroline and Katie's heart fell to her feet.

But when Caroline turned to her Katie plastered on a smile and hugged her friend. "I actually won." She told Elena who hugged her too.

Katie tried to keep her face cheerful and not the least bit disappointed, but she felt herself failing. After Caroline got her sash and was awarded her scholarship they all walked off the stage, met at the bottom of the steps by their escorts then were allowed to enjoy the rest of the party. "I think you should've won." Tyler told her as he let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her waist.

"Thanks." She told him with a sad smile.

"I do too." Katie turned to see Carol behind her. "I tried to argue that you managed to help the community while balancing school and work without your grades slipping, but they didn't listen." She said with a shrug.

"Caroline's worked really hard for this and the title meant more to her than just a scholarship." Katie said with a small smile and a shrug. "The right girl won."

Carol smiled at Katie and patted Tyler on the shoulder as she walked off. "How did you win my mom over?" He asked looking impressed.

"I have my ways." She told him coyly. "So…I didn't win the scholarship, but I did manage to make it through that dance without tripping over this dress in these heels. Does that still qualify me for a victory kiss?" She asked.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her. "Did I see jealousy on your face when Elena walked out with Damon?" Tyler asked making her frown.

"No, you saw worry. She was supposed to be with Stefan, but he disappeared." She explained. "He's been going through something here lately and I'm worried about him. Speaking of which will you excuse me for a minute? I really need to talk to Elena." She asked and he nodded. "Thank you." She pecked him on the lips then picked up her dress and started looking for Elena and Damon. She ran into them as they were headed out of the front doors. "Hey, where's Stefan?" She asked as she rushed after them noticing Bonnie behind her.

"I think he took Amber." Damon explained and when they got into the parking lot they heard a scream off in the woods. "Come on, this way."

They followed the sound to find Stefan feeding on the crying blond. "Oh my god. Stefan!" Katie yelled sounding like she was scalding a misbehaving child.

"Stefan!" Elena yelled sounding scared as they all stopped a somewhat safe distance away from the raging vampire.

Stefan turned to look at the four of them. Katie and Elena stood at Damon's sides while Bonnie stood further behind them. "Stefan. Come on. Get control of it." Damon started coaxing him. "It's okay. Come on." He walked cautiously over to his brother. "Breathe through it man."

As soon as Damon touched him Stefan growled and threw him into the distance. He started walking over to the three girls, blood dripping from his mouth and veins popping under his eyes. He was halfway to them when he stopped and started grunting in pain as he grabbed his head. Elena and Katie turn around to see Bonnie glaring at Stefan with her hands at her sides and her palms facing out.

After a few seconds of agony Bonnie stopped and Stefan, no longer raging, looked at all of them with scared eyes full of regret. "It's okay, Stefan." Damon tried, but Stefan turned from them and ran.

"Okay, I'm going to call Sheriff Forbs. You three found her and called me. You got it?" He asked as he walked over to Amber and compelled her to forget what happened.

Police cars started showing up before Damon could even pull out his phone. Soon they saw some EMS workers along with the Sheriff walking over. The EMS practically jumped Amber while the Sheriff pulled Damon to the side.

After talking to him and Amber the Sheriff walked over to the girls and Damon. "She doesn't remember what happened."

"It's a good thing the girls got here when they did. She lost a lot of blood." Damon told her.

"And you didn't see anything?" The sheriff asked and while Elena looked at Bonnie, Katie looked at the sheriff and shook her head no.

"No, we just...found her and then called Damon." Elena answered for all of them.

"Is she going to be okay?" Bonnie asked.

"It looks like it, yeah. Why don't you girls go back to the party? Damon and I can take it from here." Sheriff Forbs told them and they all nodded and left.

While Elena and Bonnie talked Katie went back inside to find Tyler. "Hey, where have you been?" Tyler asked as she walked up to him where he stood at the bar drinking a soda.

"That's a long story that I'd rather tell you later." She sighed as she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Yeah I just needed a hug." She answered feeling stupid as she let go of him. "Wanna tell your parents that you're staying at a friend's house and stay the night with me?" She asked.

"Are you serious?" He asked with a laugh.

"As a heart attack." She answered with a smile. "My grandpa won't say anything to anyone."

"Sure." He answered as he placed his hand on the back of her neck and kissed her.

"Then I will see you later." She told him as she let him go. "I'm going to head home and get out of this dress and take the ten pounds of hairspray and bobby pins out of my hair."

* * *

She had just gotten out of the shower when she heard her text tone chime. So she dried her hand and picked up the phone to see a text from The Hotter Salvatore Brother. _"Stefan is locked away thanks to Elena and one if Alaric's vervain darts. Just wanted to let you know Mystic Falls is relatively safe again."_

_"Thanks, Damon."_ she typed then hit send.

_"Good night Katie Cat."_

_"Goodnight."_

She closed her phone and put it on her desk. She had just put on a tank top and shorts when she heard a knock on the door. She ran down stairs to see her grandfather shake Tyler's hand and let him in. "Hey." She greeted him from the stairs and waved him up. "Come on."

He followed her up the stairs and to her room. "So are you going to tell me where you disappeared to tonight?" He asked not letting it go.

"Elena, Bonnie and I found Amber in the woods with a big bite on her shoulder and neck." She answered. "I didn't want to talk about it at the party." She sat down in the middle of the bed and placed a pillow in her lap.

"Is she okay?" Tyler asked as he sat down next to her.

"Yeah, they said she'll be fine. She just… lost a lot of blood." Katie shrugged.

"Are you okay?" He asked placing his hand over hers as he threaded their fingers together.

"Yeah, it's just been a really eventful day and all I want to do right now is vegg out with you. Wanna watch a movie?" She asked as with a point to the tv hanging on the wall across from the foot of the bed.

"Sure." Tyler answered so Katie slid off the bed and started looking through the DVDs that lined the shelves of the bookshelf in the room.

"What are you in the mood for?" She asked as he slid off the bed and walked over to look with her.

"Scary." He answered as he wrapped his arm around her waist.

"Have you seen ghost ship?" She asked holding up the DVD case.

"Nope." He answered so she popped it into the dvd player then grabbed the remote and they got comfortable on the bed.

"This is probably going to make me sound crazy, but I love the opening scene of this movie." She said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she snuggled into his side.

They watched as someone flipped a lever making metal cable wind up on a spool, pulling it so tight that it the cable snapped. It sliced through all the people on the ships dance floor and they slowly slipped apart and fell to the floor in pieces, leaving a little girl alive, screaming at the carnage around her. "What is wrong with you?" He asked when the scene was over.

"I told you…I'm crazy." She said with a laugh and Tyler just shook his head.

As they watched the movie Tyler flipped her hand over and started lightly drawing on her palm with the tips of her fingers. The light touch sent a relaxing wave of pleasure through her.

When the credits rolled on the tv, playing music in the background, Tyler kissed her, laying her back on the bed. As they kissed she grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. As she threw it to the side, not caring where it landed, Tyler started kissing her neck, pulling a quiet moan from somewhere deep inside her.

Her hands slid down the smooth taunt skin of his back as she rolled them over. He slid his strong hands up her sides under her shirt pushing it up as far as he could. With a small smile she grabbed it and flung it to the side then leaned down. A deep moan left his lips when she started kissing his neck.

She wasn't surprised when she felt him start unhooking her bra. It wasn't surprising that he wanted more since they had been dating for two months and hadn't gone further than heavy make out sessions. What surprised her were the butterflies that started fluttering in her stomach. Butterflies that let her know that she was capable of loving someone other than Damon.

She sat up and tossed her bra onto the pile of shirts then looked down at Tyler's body, sliding her hands over the contours of his abs while he caressed her thin, curvy sides. She smiled softly as she moved her eyes to his. "God, you're beautiful." His honest compliment made her smile grow bigger.

"Thank you." she told him then fell forward, bracing herself with her hands on each side of his head. "You're pretty damn handsome yourself." She told him, her face just a few inches from his.

He closed the gap, pressing his lips to hers in a kiss that quickly deepened until Katie kissed his jaw then down to his neck. As she stayed there, alternating between kissing and nibbling Tyler's hands explored her back and chest, pulling a moan from her as his thumbs slid across the peaks of her breasts.

Deciding she needed more from him, she started trailing kisses down his chest and stomach until she got to the waist line of his jeans. She sat up on her knees, between his legs and looked at him with lustful eyes as she started unbuckling his belt. Still looking him in the eyes she unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. "Come here." He told her with a jerk of his head and a smirk on his face. So she crawled back up him, he caught her face in his hand and pressed his lips to hers as he flipped them over and stood up letting his jeans fall to the floor.

She made it a point to keep her eyes on his face as his boxers followed and he hooked his fingers into her cheer shorts and panties and pulled them down at the same time. As he tossed them to the floor, Katie sat up and grabbed the back on his neck, pulling him down for a kiss as he crawled on top of her. His hand gripped her thigh and pulled her long, toned leg up and around his hip.

He stopped kissing her and pulled back to look her in the eyes as he sank into her. A sigh left her lips and she pressed her fingertips into his back. "Tyler." She sighed his name then pressed her lips back to his.

* * *

Katie laid on her side her head on Tyler's shoulder while he wrapped his arm around her, brushing his finger tips up and down her side. "You okay?" he asked with a look down at her. "You're really quiet."

"Yeah." Katie answered, looking up at him with a smile. "I'm awesome."

He pecked her on the lips with a smile. "Good." It was comfortably quiet for a while until he broke the silence. "Do you really want to be a pediatrician?" Katie picked her head up to look into he chocolate eyes, giving him a questioning look. "Mom mentioned it."

"I used to, yeah. It's what I've been working toward my whole life." She answered as she put her head back down on his shoulder.

"But you don't want to anymore?" He asked as he picked up some of her hair then let it slip though his fingers.

"I don't know. I've realized that not only am I doing all I can just to stay in the top twenty of our class, but I don't do well in high stress situations. And if I'm having to fight this hard now then I'm afraid that once I get into college I'm going to get chewed up and spit out." She told him then took in a deep breath.

"So what do you want to do instead?" He asked.

"I've been thinking about becoming a song writer." She admitted.

"Can you sing?" He asked looking down at her even though she couldn't see him.

"Good enough to get my songs heard, but I'm nothing amazing." She brushed it off. "Who knows, I night end up working at the grill for the rest of my life for all I know." She sighed as she rolled over onto her stomach to look at him. As the reality of what she'd just done with him set in a smile took over her face.

"What?" he asked with a small laugh at her.

"You make me really happy." She admitted.

Tyler slid his hand over her cheek and pulled her down for a kiss that made her eyes slip shut. "You make me happy too." He whispered and kissed her again then laid back and tucked his arm behind his head. Katie laid her head on his shoulder and snuggled into his side. "Sometimes all I can feel is anger. Exercising helps, but when I'm with you…I'm calm."

Katie just looked up at him and smiled before he pecked her on the lips. "I'm glad I can be your escape." She told him as she brushed her finger across his bottom lip. "Because you're mine."

They ended falling asleep in each other's arms.


	16. Chapter 16

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 16**

Katie stood in her bedroom looking at herself in the full length mirror. Her dark red hair was pinned in a sideswiped style, the nicest thing about her look for her date tonight. Tyler had told her to wear something casual. So she simply wore distressed dark wash skinny jeans, red flats and a black long sleeved Henley shirt.

She was applying a thin layer of clear lip gloss when her text chime dinged and she looked at her phone to see a message from Tyler, _"Change of plans. Meet me at the Grill."_

Katie texted back, _"Okay, leaving now."_ Then tossed her lip gloss in her bag, grabbed her keys and headed out.

When she pulled up to the grill she noticed it looked busy for a Sunday night, but she brushed it off and headed inside to meet Tyler. As soon as she stepped inside everyone yelled "Happy birthday!" as they blew horns, twirled noise makers and popped of party poppers. Katie yelped and jumped back, completely taken off guard causing everyone to laugh.

"Sorry, I got roped in at the last minute." Tyler said with a shrug as he stepped out of the crowd. "I blame them." He said with a point at Bonnie, Caroline and Elena standing a few feet away from them with smiles on their faces.

"Hey, don't blame us." Bonnie laughed and held her hands up in surrender.

"Yeah, we know you hate surprises." Caroline added.

"We were just going to give you your gifts at school tomorrow like we always do." Elena said with a guilty look.

"Then whose idea was it?" Katie asked with a look around.

"That would be me." Damon spoke up as he strutted out of the crowd with a cocky smirk on his face. "I wasn't aware that you hated surprises." he told her as he walked over to her. When Damon got too close for comfort, Tyler wrapped his arm around Katie's waist. Damon looking at Katie, cut his eyes over at Tyler "Give me a minute with the birthday girl?"

Tyler looked at Katie, silently asking her if she wanted to be left alone with him. "I'll just be a minute." she said awkwardly and he kissed her then walked off. When she was out of sight she looked up at Damon.

"Happy birthday." He told her with a smile as he showed her a metal clasp envelop.

"What is that?" she asked as she tried to take it from him, but he jerked it up out of her reach.

"Your birthday present." He told her with a look that told her it was the obvious answer.

"Yeah I realize that, but what's in it?" she asked getting playfully snippy with him.

"It's a surprise that you're going to have to wait till the end of the night for." He told her as he brought it back down to her level. "So I'm going to ask you not to bring your boyfriend home with you tonight, because I want to be with you when you open it." he told her as he held the envelop out to her. She started to take it, but he pulled it back. "Deal?"

"Deal." She told him and he handed her the envelope. "I'll go put it in the car and I promise I won't peak at it."

When she got in from putting the envelop in her car she met up with her friends where they stood at a table with a few gifts on it. "Open them." Caroline told her cheerfully then announced to the room that it was time for gifts.

"I'm going to murder Damon." Katie mumbled under her breath as the people that had brought gifts gathered around, which wasn't a lot of people. Most of the people in the grill, making it so packed were just there for the party atmosphere, not because they knew or cared about Katie.

"This one's from us." Elena told her as she picked up a white, oblong box with a teal bow tied around it.

Katie untied the bow and took the lid off the box revealing a bracelet with three different colored star charms hanging on the chain. "Best friends are like stars. You may not always see them, but they're always there." She read the inscription on the underside of the lid out loud. "Aw, you guys…" she got engulfed in a group hug. "Thank you." she told them as they let go of her then turned back to the gift table as Bonnie walked off to join the onlookers and Elena moved to stand with Stefan and watch her open the rest of her gifts.

Caroline picked up a square brown box with a navy blue bow tied around it. "That's from me." Tyler spoke up and walked over to stand beside her while she opened it. "I was going to give it to you on our date tonight but then this happened." He said with a motion to the room.

"It definitely smells good." Katie comment as she untied the bow then lifted the flaps of the box the revealing 10 thin bars of soap. She took out the card and read, "Enjoy these little leftovers of our handmade all natural soaps." She smiled at Tyler. "Who told you I like hand made soap?" he pointed to Caroline who just shrugged. She looked back at Tyler and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips. "Thank you."

"One more." Caroline told Katie, as she picked up a thin, rectangle, unwrapped white gift box. "Who's this one from?" Caroline asked looking on the box for any indication of who it was from, but she found nothing. "Okay, well, here's this one." She shrugged and handed the box to Katie.

She popped open the scotch tape that was holding the box closed and took the lid off. White glittery tissue paper covered the gift so she lifted it up revealing a framed picture of Katie, Tyler, Caroline, Matt, Elena, Stefan and Bonnie that had been taken at the Christmas festival. The picture was framed in a thick, silver, metal frame with rhinestones inset into it. "I really wish I knew who this was from." Katie said feeling an overwhelming amount of love for everyone in the picture who were also watching her open her gifts. None of them seemed to give any indication of who it was from. So Katie set the photo back in the box and stacked the other, smaller gift boxes on top of it.

Seeing that she was about to take the gifts to her car to get them out of the way, Damon stepped up and took them from her. "I've got that, you enjoy the party. Pretty sure Caroline's about to shove cake down your throat." He said with a nod at Caroline.

She was bringing out a cake with cobalt blue icing flowers on the corners of it. Caroline lit the candles and everyone in the restaurant started singing happy birthday. Katie blew out the candles setting off another round of horns, noisemakers and party poppers.

While everyone else ate cake Katie and Tyler danced. They took a break to eat dinner with her friends then when the night was over Tyler walked with her to her car, kissed her good night then they went their separate ways. Katie wished that she hadn't told Damon that she wouldn't bring Tyler home with her, she had been looking forward to spending time with him, but she had promised. So she went home alone.

When she walked into her room and set her gifts down on her bed. She was about to open the envelope Damon had given her when she heard a knock on her window. Damon was standing on her roof, outside her window. Katie walked over and opened it. "Since when do you knock?"

"You'll see. Now, invite me in so we can open your gift." he said then smirked at her.

"Okay…" she drawled. "Damon Salvatore will you please get your ass inside my house so that I may open my birthday gift?" she asked with sarcasm dripping from her words.

"Thank you smart ass." He told her as he ducked inside then sat down on her bed. He patted the spot next to him so she sat down. He watched her lift up the metal tabs of the clasp then pull out a stack of papers. "There was a reason I didn't want you to open this at the party." He warned her as she looked at the first piece of paper.

"You got the house put in my name?" she asked with a look from the paper to him.

"Yep." He popped the p at the end of the word. "You are officially legally able to kick your grand father out of your house."

"I think I'll keep him around for a little while. He pays some of the bills that I can't." she told him with a frown.

"Keep going." He motioned to the papers.

As she flipped through copies of news articles from New Orleans and reports from private investigators she started realizing what this was and why Damon hadn't wanted her to look at it at the party. "Oh my god." Katie covered her mouth at the image of her mother's dead body. A wooden stake was sticking out of her chest, her skin blue with protruding veins. As she continued through the paper work she found out that her mothers body had been shipped to the Mystic Falls mortuary where it was incinerated and disposed of. "All it says about my father is that he's still missing and has an empty grave in the Mystic Falls cemetery." She pointed out with a confused look at Damon.

He took the envelope from her and looked inside then pulled out a color photo of her father exiting a brightly lit bar in New Orleans. Damon pointed at the time stamp in the bottom corner. "I took this myself."

"My father's still alive?" she asked with a wide eyes smile.

"Yes and no." he answered glumly making Katie's smile fade and her heart sink.

"He's a vampire." She said more than asked and he nodded. "You obviously got close enough to snap this picture. Did you talk to him?"

"I didn't let him know I knew you." he said with a frown. "I casually mentioned that I hated making myself stay away from my human family." He explained. "I got him drunk enough that he mentioned his daughter, Scarlett."

A tear slipped down her cheek at the memory of her father chasing her down the hall as a little girl, calling her Scarlett as she ran away screaming and giggling. "He always called me his Scarlett."

"Katie he…" Damon started reluctantly as she wiped the tear and put on a strong face, "He made it clear that he would never have anything to do with you. He said you were better off without him. That it wasn't safe for you to have a vampire in your life and he hoped you never learned about us."

Katie's brows creased as she struggled to keep confused, hurt tears from falling. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"I don't know." Damon told her with a pained look.

She stood up, placing her hand over the pendant that hung around her neck as she started pacing the room. "How…how could he just…" she was losing the battle with her tears, taking beep breaths in a futile attempt to calm herself. "How could he leave me here?" she could no longer talk or pace as tears flooded her face and sobs shook her shoulders.

"Hey, hey, hey," Damon stood up and placed his hand on her shoulder, "come here." She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. He threaded his fingers into her hair, cupping the back of her head as he shushed her soothingly. After a few minutes he scooped her up and laid her on her bed. "Be right back." he told her quietly then went to her bathroom and grabbed a soft wash rag and wet it. When he walked back into her room he saw that she had sat up and was leaning against the head board with her knees pulled up. Her arms rested across them. "Didn't mean to make you cry on your birthday." He told her as he handed her the rag and sat down beside her.

"It's my party. I'll cry if I want to." She joked flatly as she took off her glasses and wiped her face. Damon smiled a little and rubbed the small of her back. Katie tilted her head back, resting in against the headboard behind her and draped the rag over her face. When the rag got warm, she took it off of her face and tossed it into the clothes basket across the room. Damon looked down at her as she leaned over resting her head on his shoulder. "It's always felt like there was this huge blank space in my life, not knowing if my parents were alive or lying dead in a ditch somewhere…" As she spoke Damon moved them around so they were lying across the bed. "I used to tell myself that they got dragged into some cult or mafia madness and couldn't come back for me because they had been placed in witness protection." She snuggled into his side placing her hand on the expensive black button up shirt that covered his chest. He slid his slender hand over hers holding it in place. "It's a stupid story I know, but now I don't have to come up with stories. I don't know the whole true one, but I at least know the ending." She tilted her head up to look him in the eyes. "Thank you for filling in some of that blank."

He gave her a small smile as he cupped her cheek in his hand. "You're welcome." When she laid her head back down on his shoulder he kissed the top of her head and wrapped his arms around her. Things fell quiet as they both got lost in thought and the feel of each other. So Katie was confused when Damon said, "It was Stefan by the way."

"What?" she asked with a frown up at him.

"The famed picture. It was from Stefan." He elaborated. "He didn't want to upset his jealous little girlfriend or your boyfriend."

"Huh, never would've guessed it was from him." She said as she sat up, pulled the box out from under the others that sat on the foot of her bed and pulled the photo out.

Damon sat up and looked at it over her shoulder. "Gotta admit, I'm kinda bummed I'm not in that picture." Katie looked at him over her shoulder with a frown. "What?"

I just realized that I don't have a single picture of us." She stated.

"Here." Damon grabbed her phone, pulled up the camera then leaned in and pressed his cheek to hers as he snapped a picture. She laughed as he propped his chin up on her shoulder and took another one. She was turning to kiss him on the cheek and he was about to kiss her on hers when their lips brushed. They both paused and looked into each others eyes for a second. Katie's slipped closed as he closed the few centimeters of space between their lips causing her heart to race.

Without meaning to Damon snapped a picture then the phone slipped from his hand to her bed as he wrapped both of his arms around her waist. All too soon the fog cleared from Katie's mind and she looked away from Damon, breaking the kiss. "Damon I-"

"You love Tyler." He finished for her and she nodded. "I know. I'd have to be blind to not see it."

"I'm sorry." She whispered, her eyes getting misty as she closed them and pressed her forehead to his. "You told me to stop stringing you along and choose. I choose him. I choose normal and simple."

"You're happy. Don't be sorry for that Katie Cat." He whispered then pulled his head back to see her open her eyes and give him a look that asked if he was okay. "I'm not going to go murder anyone if that's what that worried look is about." She just rolled her eyes and gave him another look that told him to be serious. "I know how to admit defeat."

"Who are _you _trying to fool?" she asked sarcastically.

"Okay so I'm a selfish, sore loser." He admitted and she cracked a small smile. "But I love you. So I'll settle for friends." He said as he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Her eyes slipped closed when he brushed his thumb over her cheek bone and she heard the whoosh of him leaving through the window. She opened her eyes to see the curtains blowing in the wind.

She picked up her phone to see the picture of them kissing on the screen. An ache shot through her chest at the sight she had never seen before. Knowing she couldn't keep it on her phone for Tyler to possibly see she emailed it to herself, saved it to her computer then deleted it from her phone.

* * *

~Eight Days Later~

She stood in the dressing room of the founder's hall taking the rollers out of her hair while wearing a corset and puffy skirt to fill out the white and green dress that Scarlett O'hara wore to the party at the beginning of Gone with the Wind. After she finished her hair complete with green bows that matched the dress on each side of her head where her hair was pinned up to look like Scarlett's, she put on the dress and headed outside.

As she headed to the float her eyes found Damon and Stefan staring at Elena in her time era dress making Katie realize that they both were probably feeling like they had been jerked back in time. She ignored them and was walking past them when she heard Damon call out in an Irish accent, "Katie Scarlett!" She found herself smiling as she stopped and turned around to see him walking toward her. "You took the theme and your name a little far don't you think?"

"I've always wanted an excuse to wear this dress." She said with a smile down at her outfit.

"The 1800s really suit you." He told her as he walked closer and adjusted one of the green bows making her roll her eyes. "Seriously if you were alive back then every man within a fifty mile radius would've been fighting to be your beau."

"And would you have been one of them?" She asked being coy.

"Absolutely." He told her with a cocky smile.

"Liar." She told him making his smile fall. "You wouldn't have seen me for Katherine standing in the way." She walked around him to Tyler who was walking over to them. "Hey handsome." She told him as she looked him up and down taking in his grey soldier's uniform for the float for the history class. "You know, all ladies love a man in uniform."

"Oh yeah?" He asked as he leaned down and kissed her.

"Are you sure you can't be on the founders court float with me?" She asked with a frown.

"You know I can't. Mr. Saltzman's grading all of us on it." He said with a shake of his head. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. The guy that escorted Caroline for the pageant has agreed to stand up there with me." She sighed.

"Guys, get on your floats." Tyler's mom told them as she walked by.

"Yes ma'am." Katie sighed then kissed Tyler one more time before she headed to the float where Caroline was standing higher than the rest of them. Elena and Stefan stood on the pillar below Caroline while Katie and her substitute escort stood one down from them.

* * *

When the parade was over Katie went to the founder's hall and changed into street clothes then met up with Tyler and enjoyed the festival. Eventually when they had their fill of cotton candy they went to the grill and started playing pool.

"You know, one of these days I'm going to beat you." Katie said after she stood up from failing to sink a ball.

Tyler was going to say something back, but he saw Katie make a face and place her hand over her mouth. "Are you okay?" he asked, but she shook her head no and made a run for the bathroom.

Katie barely made it into a stall before her dinner came back up. With a groan she stood up and flushed the toilet. _"What the hell was that about?"_ She thought to herself trying to figure out what was wrong with her. She felt fine until a waitress walked by with a sizzling plate of fajitas and the smell wafted in her face. She loved fajitas. Why would the smell make her sick? _"Oh my god." _The fact that mother nature was two weeks late hit her like a punch to the gut and she placed her hand over her lower stomach. _"Okay, Katie, get it together. Don't freak out, it could be nothing. Having a lot of sex can throw off a period and there is a stomach bug going around."_

She was washing her hands, when Caroline came in. "Hey, Tyler sent me in to check on you."

"I'm fine." Katie said, putting on a fake, but believable smile as she turned off the water and grabbed some paper towels. "Pretty sure I just ate too much cotton candy." She lied and tossed the paper towel into the trash as they walked out of the bathroom. Caroline went back to Matt and Katie met Tyler at the pool tables.

"Hey are you okay?" Tyler asked as he slid his hand around her waist.

"Yeah, I just got a little sick to my stomach." She said as she waved him off. "I'm fine now." She gave him a smile and grabbed her pool stick.

Tyler got quiet when he saw his dad walking over. "What are you doing here? I told you to go home." His father asked.

"I decided not to." Tyler told him with a defiant tone.

"If I tell you to do something you do it!" The mayor snapped while grabbing Tyler's arm, hard.

"Get off me." Tyler jerked his arm from his father.

"Mayor, is everything okay?" Caroline asked as she rushed over with Matt not far behind.

The mayor looked at Caroline and Matt then looked at his son. While he wasn't looking at her, Caroline mouthed, "Are you okay?" to Katie who nodded.

"Please, Tyler, I need you to go home. Now. Take you're friends with you." He told Tyler softer and calmer now that he knew he had an audience.

"Why, what's the problem?" Katie asked confused.

"I can't explain." He said as he looked around at the four of them. "But all of you need to get home. Please."

"Yeah, okay." Tyler told him skeptically.

"Here, take my car." Tyler's dad placed his keys in Tyler's hand. "It's out back." Tyler nodded and placed his hand on Katie's back. "Caroline, Matt, go with them." Caroline and Matt nodded and grabbed their things.

They were on their way to Tyler's house with Tyler driving, Caroline in the front passenger seat because she hated sitting in the back of a car and Matt and Katie in the back when Tyler asked, "What the hell is that?"

"What the hell is what?" Katie asked scooting to the middle to see out the front glass, thinking Tyler saw something in the road.

"That noise." Tyler answered then grabbed his head with both hands, groaning in unbearable pain.

"Caroline the wheel!" Matt yelled from beside Katie.

Caroline grabbed the wheel and tried to get control of the increasingly speeding car, but she failed and the car crashed into a brick wall. Katie saw the fleeting image of Caroline's screaming face as she flew past her from the back seat and crashed into the front glass. That was the last image she saw before her world turned black, like someone flipped a light switch.

* * *

Tyler and Matt were sitting in the waiting room when Sheriff Forbes came out of the double doors that Katie and Caroline had disappeared through on stretchers.

"What's happening? Is Caroline alright?" Matt asked as he stood up and Tyler followed.

"Um, there was some internal bleeding. They're taking her into surgery." She answered, shaken up.

"What else did they say? Is she going to be okay?" Matt asked.

"They're going to do everything they can." She answered knowing it was hospital slang for it doesn't look too good.

"What about Katie?" Tyler asked and Sheriff Forbes eyes started to get misty. "Please don't tell me she's..." Tyler asked as his eyes watered, but he didn't cry.

"She's...alive. She's suffered a traumatic brain injury and her..." she paused to get her voice under control. "Her neck is broken. If she wakes up there's a chance she'll be paralyzed."

"Oh god..." Tyler sank down into the chair not knowing what else to do.

"Tyler, have you talked to your mom?" Sheriff Forbs asked.

"I left her a message telling her I was here." He answered in shock.

"You need to call her." She told him, hating that he was going to possibly lose his dad and his girlfriend on the same night.

"What is it?" Tyler asked.

"It's your dad." Sheriff Forbs answered sounding like she was going to break down.

* * *

"Bonnie." Elena called as she found her friend pacing the hospital hallway. "How are they?"

"Caroline's out of surgery, but she's weak. They don't know if she's going to make it." Bonnie answered. "Katie's unconscious. They won't know anything for sure until she wakes up, but they don't think she will."

Damon, who was watching them, felt an invisible dagger stab into his chest.

"What?" Elena asked as she placed her hand on her stomach and Bonnie pulled her in for a hug. "Isn't there something you could do, like, a...a spell or something?" Elena asked as they let go of each other.

"She doesn't know how." Damon spoke up as he walked over to them. "Do you?"

"No." Bonnie answered. "I don't."

"No you don't." Damon said walking closer. "Because it took Emily years to learn a spell like that."

"Yeah well, I can take down a vampire. That spell was easy to learn." Bonnie bit back.

Damon turned to Elena. "I can give them some blood."

"No, no way." Elena argued.

"Just enough to heal them. They will be safe in the hospital, it will be out of her system in a day... they'll be better, Elena." Damon argued back.

"It's too risky. I can't agree to that." Elena stood her ground.

"I was only asking on the behalf of Caroline. You can't stop me from giving Katie my blood." Damon told her with one of his pissed off smirks.

"Do it." Bonnie spoke up making the two of them look at her like she was crazy given her stance on vampires. "This is Caroline and Katie. Okay? We can't let them die." She looked at Damon. "Do it."

"If I do this for them, you and me call a truce?" Damon asked.

"No, but you'll do it anyway...for Katie." Bonnie told him with a knowing glare.

* * *

Damon walked into Katie's ICU room, his eyes landed on her bruised and badly cut up face and body lying motionless in the bed. A ventilator tube was sticking out of her mouth, a machine making her chest raise and fall. "Katie Cat..." he sighed, resting his hand on her forehead brushing her red waves out of her face.

He was biting his wrist when he heard it, a small rapidly beating heart that made him freeze in place. "Oh...no..." he groaned and grabbed the rails of the bed leaning over it, placing his forehead on her stomach, the small heartbeat growing louder. "How could you be so stupid?"

With a pain twisted face he bit his wrist and held it over her face, dripping his blood into her mouth.

* * *

Katie woke up in the middle of the night gagging on the tube that was down her throat. Panicking, her heart rate spiked causing the monitor to start beeping, altering the nurse. Tears ran down her cheeks as they put a shot of something in her arm and her world turned black again.

The next time she woke up, she found the tube gone. The only thing attached to her now was the I.V. in her arm. Feeling like she had swallowed shards of glass, she pressed her fingertips to her neck. A passing nurse saw her moving and stopped in her tracks. "Ma'am." She called with raspy words. The nurse walked in. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Um, let me go get your doctor." the nurse told her with an odd look.

Before Katie knew it a doctor and two nurses came in and started throwing around the words miracle, broken neck and severe brain trauma. "Can someone please tell me what is going on?" She asked getting mad at being talked at and about as if she wasn't there.

The doctor told the nurses to leave then sat down on the stool in the room and rolled over to sit near her head. "We can't figure out how you have healed." He started.

"Healed from what?" She asked as he handed her a Styrofoam cup if ice chips.

"What's the last thing you remember?" He asked for a second time.

"I told you. I was in a car with my friends and the driver thought he saw something in the road so I scooted to the middle of the back seat to see what he was talking about." She explained, agitated with him.

"That car crashed and you went through the windshield." He explained and Katie's jaw slacked. "Just 12 hours ago. You suffered a broken neck and a very traumatic brain injury. You shouldn't even be able to move your head right now."

"You're telling me I'm supposed to be...what, paralyzed?" Katie asked, confused.

"Yes, but you're not and we don't know why or how." He told her with an astonished head shake.

Katie's eyes went wide with realization. The only explanation to her recovery was that Damon or Stefan had given her blood. "What about my friends?"

"The boys in the car with you were fine, but your friend Caroline is experiencing the same miraculous recovery as you." He told her with a confused shake of his head. "For right now were running blood tests."

"So when can I get up and walk around?" She asked already getting tired of being in the bed.

"Just take it easy for now. Okay?" he asked as he patted her arm.

"Okay, where are my personal belongings?" She asked looking around for her things as she realized her necklace was no longer on her neck.

"I'll get a nurse to bring them to you." He told her as he stood up. "Do you have any other questions before I leave?"

"Yes." She told him with a dry mouth and a weight on her chest. "I think I'm pregnant."

"Okay. We'll do a blood test to check." He told her with a nod then left.

A few minutes later a nurse walked in with a white plastic bag that contained her phone, purse and jewelry. She explained that the clothes she had been wearing were disposed of. She was putting her necklace back on when Bonnie walked in with a smile. "Hey." She said as she walked in and gave Katie a hug. "How are you?" She asked as she let her go.

"Apparently my recovery is miraculous." Katie told her with an eye roll and Bonnie gave her a knowing smile. "So who did it?" Katie asked quietly.

"Damon." Bonnie answered as tears pooled in her eyes.

"Aw come on. Don't get mushy on me Bonnie Bennett." Katie told her with a playful warning tone.

"I'm sorry..." Bonnie said as she wiped a tear. "It's just...we almost lost you."

"Well you didn't. I'm fine. Sore, but fine." She said as she put a finger on each side of Bonnie's lips and pushed up the corners. Bonnie smacked her hand away but smiled.

"There's something you need to know." Bonnie said, her smile falling.

"What?" Katie drawled.

"Tyler's dad died." She told her solemnly.

"How?" Katie asked.

Bonnie told her about the Gilbert device that the mayor and John used to incapacitate the vampires in Mystic Falls. She also told her about how she lied about removing the spell from the device and without meaning too caused the death of the mayor and the near death of two of her best friends along with Damon and Stefan. "Are you mad?" Bonnie asked, ashamed of herself.

"No, Bonnie, I'm not mad." Katie told her with a shake of her head. "I know how you feel about vampires, I get it."

"I'm so sorry."

"Bon...it's fine...stop apologizing." Katie told her with a look that said she was going to punch her if didn't stop.

"Okay, okay." Bonnie told her in surrender. "I'm going to go check on Caroline." She told her and gave her another hug. "Call me if you need anything."

A few hours later her doctor knocked on the door then let himself inside. "Well, Miss Finnegan, all of you're blood work came back perfectly normal." He told her as he stopped to stand beside her bed.

"And the pregnancy test?" She asked reluctantly not really wanting to know the answer.

"You are pregnant." His words took her breath away. "We're going to have an ultrasound done to figure out how far along you are and make sure everything is okay. Do you have any questions or concerns?"

Katie could only manage to shake her head no. As soon as the doctor closed the door behind him she broke. Tears flooded her cheeks. She felt like a complete and total idiot. How could she, responsible and on top of her future Katie, screw up so tremendously?

She was staring off into space, quiet tears slipping down her cheeks, when a nurse walked in, pulling an ultrasound machine on wheels behind her. "Hey, I'm here to..." she stopped seeing the tears on Katie's face. "Are you okay?"

"No, but I will be eventually." Katie answered then pulled her hospital gown up, exposing her lower stomach while her waist down was covered by the tan hospital blanket. "Let's just get this over with."

The ultrasound tech. checked her wrist band and asked for her birth date then started the ultrasound. It took a few minutes, but eventually Katie saw a little black circle with a little flickering grey circle floating around in it. "It looks like you're at about three weeks." Katie heard the nurse, but all she could do was stare at the little flicker on the small screen. After watching her take some measurements then wipe the clear gel off of her stomach the tech. turned to her and handed her a print out of the ultrasound. "Is there anything I can get you?" she asked.

"Can you let someone know that I won't be accepting visitors?" she asked and the tech nodded.

* * *

That night, Katie was woken up when someone jerked the pillow out from under her head. Her eyes landed on Elena with her pillow in her hands and an odd smile on her face. "Elena what the hell?"

"Nope, try again." She told her with a tone she'd never heard from her friend before.

When she noticed that Elena's vervain necklace was missing puzzle pieces in her brain snapped into place. "Katherine?"

"In the flesh." She told her with a sway of her body. "I have a message for Damon."

"Then tell him yourself." She told her with a glare.

With a whoosh Katherine tossed the pillow aside and grabbed Katie's head in her hands. Katie tried to get her hands off of her but she was no match for Katherine. "Tell him I said, you're welcome." With a twitch of her hands Katie's neck snapped, killing her instantly.


	17. Chapter 17

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 17**

Katie woke up just before sun rise, a burning hunger in her stomach. "God, when was the last time I ate something?" she sighed as she slid out of bed. When she opened her door, intending on asking a nurse where a vending machine or something was, she saw that the night nurse wasn't at the desk. With a sigh she turned to go back into her room, but the scent of something delicious hit her nose and she found herself following it without thinking.

The room her nose led her too was a patient's room. No food containers of any kind were anywhere in sight, so determined to find the source of the irresistible smell she looked around to make sure there weren't any nurses around, then walked into the room. When her eyes landed on an almost full blood bag hanging on an IV pole things came rushing back to her.

The image of Katherine's hands on each side of her head and the sickening crack of her neck breaking came to mind making her realize that Katherine killed her with Damon's blood in her system. "Son of a bitch." She gasped quietly and stumbled back hitting her hips against the round table in the corner of the room. The elderly man in the bed stirred, but didn't wake up.

The burning hunger intensified, and she grabbed the edge of the table behind her, gripping it so tight her knuckles turned white. "No, no, no." she whispered as she squeezed her eyes closed and tucked her chin to her chest, fighting the urge to just sink her teeth into the man. The sound of his blood, pulsing through his veins was way too loud and she opened her eyes and looked at his neck. She bit her lip and glanced up at the open door of the room. No one was around. So she walked over to the sleeping man and whispered, "I'm so sorry." then closed the plastic clamp on his IV hose, the one on the blood bag then disconnected the man from the bag and slipped it off of the pole.

She slipped it into the hospital robe that she wore over the open backed gown and left the room. "What are you doing up?" The nurse that was now at the nurses desk asked as Katie walked by.

"I was just looking for a vending machine." Katie told her with an innocent tone.

"Breakfast will be brought around at six. You can eat then." The nurse told her so Katie gave the older blond a nod and went into her room, shutting the door behind her.

"Oh god..." she sighed as she sat down on her bed and pulled the blood bag out of her robe. A sick feeling swept over her when she remembered the news she received the previous day. "The baby…" she whispered, not knowing if her baby was dead too. With an arm wrapped around her stomach she stared down at the cold blood bag in her hand.

She knew she should call Damon or Stefan or even Elena or Bonnie and let them know what was going on, but she knew this was a decision only she could make. But how was she supposed to make it? If she became a vampire she would live forever. It was a huge perk, but she would never live a normal life. If she didn't drink the blood she would die for good. Tears started pouring down her face as she realized there was no winning in this situation. What if she turned and became a completely different person? What if she started murdering people?

"I don't want to die." She whispered as she picked up the tube to the blood bag and undid the plastic clamp. She stared at it for what felt like half an hour before she placed the tube between her lips and sucked. Her face twisted in disgust as the coppery blood touched her tongue, but she forced herself to swallow. As soon as the blood hit her stomach she found she couldn't drink it fast enough. In half a minute the blood bag was as flat as an empty juice pouch. "I need more." She panted as she tossed the bag aside, feeling like she would die if she didn't get more blood.

Feeling a pinching sensation around her eyes she slid off the bed and moved to the mirror over the sink in the room. Veins moved under the skin below her eyes and she squeezed them shut, blowing a calming breath out of her pursed, shaking lips. "I can do this...I can do this… I've made my choice, no backing out now." she breathed out calmly. "I just...need to find more blood bags...I- ah!" Something burning her chest made her jerk her robe open to see her necklace from Damon was the source. As quickly as she could she undid the clasp and took it from around her neck. "Son of a bitch." She panted looking down at the beautiful charm dangling from the chain in her hand. A wave of sadness swept over her at the realization that she could never again wear her most cherished piece of jewelry. She tucked it into her bag that sat on the counter next to the sink as she wiped her tears.

With a deep breath she grabbed the white plastic footboard of the hospital bed and focused on calming herself and getting her thoughts prioritized. "First, compulsion test. I'll compel the nurse to get another ultrasound done and bring me another blood bag…that is if I can even compel people yet." She was talking to herself like a crazy person, but it was keeping her grounded. "Okay, let's do this." She blew a huff of air between her lips, puffing out her cheeks as she checked her eyes in the mirror. Seeing that she was okay she left the room.

Her room was right across from the nurse's station. "Hi." Katie greeted the nurse with a sweet smile then looked her in the eyes. "You're going to do whatever it takes to get an ultrasound Tech. up here to do another ultrasound and make sure my baby is okay."

"I'll do whatever it takes." The blond nurse repeated flatly, her brown eyes trained on Katie's greens.

"You're also going to bring two blood bags to my room. Lie if you have to, I don't care, just get them."

"I'll bring you blood bags." She replied like a zombie.

"Good, thank you." Katie told her with a smile then turned and went back to her room.

* * *

An hour later the nurse walked in with two blood bags that she started to hang on the IV pole, but Katie stopped her. "That won't be necessary." The nurse turned to her with a confused look. "You can just put then on the tray." She pointed to the table that slid over the bed and the nurse set them down. "When will the tech. be coming?" she asked, eager and nervous to find out if she was still pregnant.

"She is seeing a patient on the first floor then she will be in to see you." The nurse replied still a little confused as to what she was doing and why she was doing it.

"Thank you now forget that I asked you to get blood for me." Katie told her with an overly sweet smile and the nurse nodded then walked out.

Katie sipped on one of the blood bags while she waited for the ultrasound tech. She was halfway through it when she felt the veins moving under her eyes. So she got up from the chair and walked over to the sink leaning close to the mirror as she watched the veins. She saw herself wince as a dull pain radiated from her mouth through her sinuses to the rest of her head.

Suddenly the pain intensified tenfold causing her to cry out and cuss as she hit the counter with her fists. With a pain twisted face she opened her mouth and pulled back her lips to look at her teeth, but in the blink of her eyes her reflection blurred. She closed her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut and took off her glasses, keeping her eyes closed as the pain slowly faded. When she opened her eyes she realized that it was her glasses that had been making her vision blurry. She no longer needed them. They got tossed aside as she looked at her reflection, pulling her lips back again to see her new teeth.

Her canines were longer and sharper and the incisors next to them were now pointed. She also noticed the veins were back under her eyes and the whites of them were now red. She had seen this…the eyes and the teeth, on both Damon and Stefan before, but she never imagined how she would look as a vampire.

She knew she couldn't let someone walk in and see her like that, so she closed her eyes and focused on pushing it back. When she felt the veins under her eyes moving again she looked up to see that her face was normal again. Which was a good thing because someone knocked on the door and walked in. "Hey you." Tyler's voice behind her caused her heart to skip a beat as she spun around to see him holding a bundle of brightly colored daisys in his hand and a worried look on his handsome face. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." She replied as she turned back to the sink, grabbed the blood bags and put them in the sink and tossed a rag over them, keeping them out of Tyler's sight. "I thought I told the nurse I didn't want visitors." She said, sounding rude without meaning to.

"I talked her into letting me see you." he said with a smirk. "Why don't you want visitors?" he asked, confused as he walked into the room and set the flowers on the bedside table.

"I just…really don't want anyone to see me like this." She lied with a shrug as he walked over and placed his hands on her robe covered hips. "Dirty hair and hospital clothes…not flattering."

"Since when are you that shallow? Everyone's worried about you and wants to come see you." he told her. "No one cares what you look like."

"I know it's just-" she was interrupted when the ultrasound technician knocked on the door as she opened it and came in with the machine. "I thought you said you were fine." Tyler told her with a confused look.

"Is this the dad?" The tech. asked as she moved the machine beside the bed.

"Dad?" Tyler asked the nurse then looked at Katie with wide eyes. "What is she talking about?"

Katie did her best to stay calm. She looked at the tech. and asked, "Can you give us a minute?" The nurse nodded and walked out. This isn't how she wanted him to find out. He wasn't supposed to be here. This isn't how any of this was supposed to happen. "Tyler I..." she felt the blood rushing in and turned away from him to hide her face.

"Hey, what's going on?" Tyler asked, resting his hand on Katie's back as she took in a calming breath.

When she was sure she could tell him without her face vamping out on her, she turned back to him. "You remember when we were at the grill playing pool and I got sick?" She asked as she turned to her bag and pulled out the ultrasound picture.

"Yeah, but you said you were fine." He said as she handed it to him. He took it with wide eyes and she could hear his heart beat speed up.

"I'm pregnant." She told him quietly, hating that she was having to do it this way. She was about eighty percent sure that she lost the baby when she turned, but she couldn't tell him that. She would just have to let things play out now.

Tyler stumbled back until his back hit the wall. She gave him a minute to let it sink in. "I'm gonna be a dad?" He asked with a frown at her.

"I don't know." Her answer got a confused look from him. Tears slipped down her cheeks as if on cue. "I've been cramping and something just doesn't feel right. That's why the ultrasound tech is back, to make sure everything's okay." She lied and Tyler just stared at her. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to. I just-"

"I'll stay." He pushed himself off the wall and cupped her cheek in his hand, wiping at a tear with his thumb. "If you want me to."

Katie picked up her foot and started tapping the toe of her shoe down into the floor, trying to decide what would be best and while holding back the blood that so desperately wanted to rush to her eyes. Eventually she nodded, "I want you to."

"I'll get the nurse." He told her as he headed to the door and opened it. The woman came in as Katie got on the bed and covered her lower half with the heavy blanket and lifter her gown, revealing her lower abdomen. As the nurse squeezed the cold clear gel on her stomach, Tyler moved to the other side of the bed and grabbed her hand in both of his. They both watched the screen as the tech moved the wand around on her belly. After searching for a few minutes and not finding anything the nurse stopped and looked at Katie with a frown. "What's wrong?" Tyler asked. Katie couldn't speak. She knew what happened, she was one step ahead of Tyler and the nurse. She knew that the baby died when she did and the vampire blood in her system got rid of all signs of her ever being pregnant.

"This is weird." The woman told Tyler then looked at Katie. "I know you were pregnant. I'm the one that did your ultrasound yesterday and there was a baby there, but now it's like you were never even pregnant. If you miscarried there would still be an embryo without a heart beat, but there's nothing."

"So did she miscarry or was she never even pregnant to begin with?" Tyler asked confused. "Do you even know what you're doing?" Tyler got mad in a snap.

"I miscarried." Katie answered flatly. "And my body took care of the rest."

"Well, you are an unusually fast healer." The tech pointed out. "You and that other girl are the talk of the hospital."

"So you're not pregnant anymore?" Tyler asked Katie with a mix of relief and sadness in his voice. Katie just shook her head no.

"Ill leave you be." The tech told them as she wheeled her machine to the door.

Katie was silent until the woman was gone. "I don't know what to say." She didn't look at him as she pulled her knees up, hugging them.

"I don't either." Tyler sat down on the side of the bed facing her. "I mean first you're pregnant then you're not."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you yesterday, but I knew that you were dealing with losing your dad..." she started and stopped when he looked at her. "Bonnie told me."

"I don't want to talk about him." He told her as he looked away from her letting his head fall.

"Still, I'm sorry...for everything." She told him quietly.

"Is this my fault?" He asked looking at her across his shoulder. "Because I wrecked the car? Did I hurt the baby?"

Katie felt a pang of hatred for Katherine shoot through her. "No, Tyler, it's not your fault. My body just...didn't support the pregnancy. It's no one's fault." Tyler just let his head fall. "Look at me." She told him as she moved out from under the covers to sit on her knees next to him and slid her hand over his cheek pushing him to look at her across his shoulder. "It wasn't meant to be. It's as simple as that. Okay?"

"Okay." He told her with a tight lipped nod. Katie just lifted her brows at him with a look that told him to say it like he meant it. "Okay." He told her a little louder.

"Are we good?" She asked quietly, not knowing what else to say.

"Yeah." Tyler gave her a small sad smile, "we're good."

"Good." She told him as she slid her hand into his and gave it a squeeze as he gripped it back. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but it didn't seem like the best timing. He'd just been on an emotional roller coaster, she didn't want to add one more twist to it. So instead she rested her forehead on his shoulder. He threaded his fingers through her waves. When she looked up at him he pressed his lips to hers.

He stood from the bed making Katie frown. "I've gotta get back to Mom." He told her making Katie remember that Carol was probably planning a funeral for the mayor.

"Yeah. No, go..." she told him with a wave of her hand.

"Are you sure you don't need me to stay, because I'll ditch her if you need me to." He said with raised brows.

"I'm sure. Your mom needs you right now." She assured him as she slid from the bed and stood up. She pecked him on the lips. "Go."

Tyler kissed her one more time then left. With him gone Katie breathed out a sigh of relief and walked over to the sink where she uncovered the blood bags. She quickly downed the one bag and started sipping on the second one. Wondering what time it was she turned on her phone. After it was done turning on the screen displayed that it was three o'clock. Three more hours till it would be dark and she could leave the hospital. Those three hours couldn't pass fast enough.

She managed to stretch the blood bags out for an hour. So with two hours to go she opened the curtains just enough to let light in, then out of boredom she started holding her hand in the ray of sunlight just to see how long she could hold it there before it became too painful.

But eventually the sun sank enough that it stopped burning her. So she grabbed her stuff and left the hospital. She didn't have a ride. So she put her new speed to the test and ran home. She was thrilled to find that she wasn't even breathless when she sped up her front door steps.

Thankfully, since Damon had put the house in her name for her birthday she didn't have to be invited in. She walked in to find her grandfather sitting in his recliner drinking a beer. "I thought you were on your death bed." He told her, not moving from the chair as he took in her disheveled hair and the hospital gown and robe that she still wore.

"Really?" Katie asked as she walked in tossing her bag and keys down on the table. "I almost die and that's what you say to me when I get home?" She stood over him, glaring at the hateful man. "How about, "oh my God I'm so happy you're okay."?" She asked, clearly pissed.

"That would imply that I care about you. I don't." He told her then turned his eyes back to the football game.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She asked with a frowning glare. "Do you care about anything other than beer, football and punching me?" She asked.

"Nope." He told her with a sarcastic smile, not taking his eyes off of the forty inch flat screen tv that sat on a wooden entertainment center. Letting her anger get the best of her she moved in front of him, blocking his view of the game. "Move." He told her leaning to the side to look around her. Seeing that she still didn't have his full attention she turned around and put her fist through the tv sending shards of glass and plastic to scatter around her feet. "What the hell?" he yelled and stood up. "You're going to pay for that."

"Am I?" she asked turning back to him with a glare. "I don't think I will."

"What the hell is your problem?" he asked loudly.

"You." Katie answered. "You are and always have been my problem. Because of you I have led the safest, most boring life in the universe. I never take risks for fear of pissing you off. Because of you I have kept secrets from my friends. Because of you I don't have the slightest clue what it feels like to be loved unconditionally." She told him taking a step closer to him with every word and with every step her hatred of the man got closer and closer to the front of her mind. "I have never hated anyone as much as I hate you and that includes the bitch that killed me."

"Killed you…what?" he asked as he backed away toward the front door. Her reddening vein framed eyes caused him to be scared of her for the first time in his life. "What are you?"

"I'm a vampire, Grandpa." She answered with a voice that was sticky sweet. "And you…" she said as she took a final step to him making his back hit the wall next to the front door she placed her hand over his neck like he had done to her countless times, pinning him in place. "You sucked the life out of me." She smiled at him menacingly, showing him her fangs. He shook with fear. "And tonight?" she looked into his brown eyes, the fear in them bringing her a disturbing about of joy. "Tonight I'm going to enjoy returning the favor."

He whimpered as Katie slammed her teeth into his neck. She knew feeding was going to be satisfying, but she didn't know until she bit into him just how amazing it would feel. No wonder Damon killed so often.

As she drained the life from him, he started to slump against her. So for the first time ever she wrapped her arms around him, holding him up. When he was completely drained, she shoved him to the floor. His head hit the floor so hard she heard his skull crack.

Reveling in how satisfied and strong she felt, she leaned her head back, closed her eyes and smiled as she licked blood from her lips. "God that felt good." She sighed as she opened her eyes and looked down at her lifeless grandfather.

She locked the front door to keep people from walking in to see what she had done, then went upstairs. A duffle bag was thrown onto her bed, shoes, clothes and necessities were thrown inside it then she zipped it up. She went into the bedroom, took her robe and hospital gown off and wiped the blood from her face with it then tossed it to the floor. After putting on clean clothes she sat down at her desk, pulled out her journal and started writing on a fresh page. "Damon, I'm sorry, but I can't stay in this town. Not after what I did tonight. I can't just pick up where I left off. I can't make myself be with Tyler or be around my friends knowing that I could hurt them. I need to move on and make a new life for myself somewhere else. So please don't come looking for me. I know Bonnie probably won't do a locator spell even if you asked her too. I'm a vampire now so I know she hates me. I want to tell you goodbye in person so bad, but I know if I do you will convince me to stay or offer to come with me and if you don't do either that will hurt even more than telling you goodbye in this note. So I love you and goodbye."

She tucked the necklace he had given her between the pages, closed the book and set her cell phone on top of it. With one last look around the room she grabbed the bag and carried it out to her car. The bag was tossed into the passenger seat before she cranked the car and pulled it around to the privacy of the back yard.

She grabbed rope and cinder blocks from the garage and put them in the trunk. Then went inside and tossed her grandfather over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She tossed him carelessly into the trunk with the blocks then slammed it shut.

With the windows down and the night air blowing through her hair, she drove out to the falls and tied the blocks to her grandfather's torso. She kneeled at the edge of a cliff next to her grand father where she had set him on the ground. "Good riddance." With a single pushed he tumbled over the edge and landed in the water below with a loud splash. With him taken care of Katie got in her car and drove with no destination in mind.

That night she crashed at a sleazy road side motel. Not caring how nasty the bed was she quickly fell asleep.

~*Dreaming*~  
Katie sat at a table in a candle lit bedroom of an old cabin. A glass wash basin and matching pitcher sat on a stand next to the table. A metal mirror was in her hand as she stared at a reflection that wasn't her own. Her round face, thin upturned nose, and small bow shaped lips were the same as hers. As were her green, almond eyes. However the woman in the reflection had freckles all over her face that was framed by tight, copper curls. Her bangs were twisted and pinned back out of her face..

Katie set down the mirror as a man walked up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She stood up and turned to him. He was handsome, clad in simple brown trousers and a white tunic. His brown eyes seemed to stare into her soul as she cupped his cheek in her hand, running it over his strong jaw line to his neck. He smiled with his thin, naturally pouting lips and looked down. His shoulder length waves falling in his face before he looked back up at her through his lashes. "You are an exquisite beauty."

She smiled back shyly as she brushed her thumb over the beauty mark that sat to the left of his nose.

The passion in his hazel eyes sent butterflies through her stomach as the man wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. His stubble was rough against her face, but she liked it and giggled as he picked her up, sitting her on the table making Katie realize that she was wearing a corset and pantalets under a thick cotton dress. A moan left her lips as the man brushed her hair to the side and started kissing her neck. He whispered, "I will love you until the day I die." into her ear causing her eyes to slip shut as she cupped the back of his neck in her hand as she sighed.

"If I am to die first, I will find you in my next life." She whispered as he continued to kiss her neck. With a smile on his handsome face he pulled back and started untying the crisscrossed strings on the front of her dress.

"Am I interrupting something brother?" they heard someone behind them and with a look of horror on his face he let go of her and turned to look at the blond headed man in the room.

She started shaking, "Jonah." She said realizing that the blond headed man who had interrupted them was holding, what she somehow knew was her son, around the neck. "Please, don't hurt him." She pleaded. He just smiled at her and sank his teeth into young the boys neck. "No!" She screamed and reached out for her son.

The blond headed man pushed the fading boy to the side making the brunet man run to the boy and bite his wrist, giving him blood before he died. But it left Katie, or whoever she was in this dream, unprotected. The blond vampire dashed over to her and ripped her head from her body.

~*End of Dream*~

She had this same dream every time she closed her eyes.

* * *

Katie's friends tried calling her and left her voicemails, but she didn't answer or return their calls. They visited her house, but when she didn't answer the door they gave up and walked away.

Three days passed like this before Elena went to the boarding house and found Damon sitting in the library drinking and reading Stefan's journal. "Have you heard from Katie?" She asked him with a frown.

"Nope." He answered not looking up from the book.

"Don't you think that's a little weird?" She asked.

"Not really." He answered sounding like he could care less. It wasn't unusual for Katie to go three days without talking to or seeing him.

"She's not in the hospital even though they didn't release her. She's not at her house, here or the grill. No one has heard from her, she's not answering calls and her voice mail is full." Her words made Damon look up at Elena with furrowed brows. It wasn't like Katie to not talk to her friends.

"Have you tried Tyler?" He asked.

"Yeah, he said he visited her at the hospital, but he hasn't spoken to her since. She's not answering his calls either." She answered. "I'm really worried about her."

"Yeah." He stood up and tossed Stefan's journal into the arm chair. "Me too." He walked past Elena like a man on a mission. "Come on."

Damon and Elena drove to Katie's house and Elena tried the door to find it locked. "Her grandfather's truck is here, but it doesn't look like he's home." Elena pointed out as she got the hide a key rock out of the fake plant next to the door. When she unlocked the door and pushed it open warm air hit them in the face. The air-conditioning had been off for days.

"Katie!" Damon called. "Katie?" He got no response so they walked in immediately noticing the busted tv. "Well that's not good." Damon said with a wide eyed look at Elena.

"You don't think Katherine..." Elena couldn't make herself finish the sentence and say, killed Katie too.

"Grandpa's missing, but his truck is here. Katie's missing and her car is gone." Damon said trying to put the pieces together as he started up to Katie's room. "Hangers on the bed." Damon pointed out. "She always puts them back in the closet."

Elena went over to the closet where she knew Katie kept her bags while Damon went to the bathroom. "Her cheer duffle is missing."

"There's a bloody hospital gown in here." He called as he walked back into the bedroom. That's when he spotted her cell phone and journal on the desk. Elena watched as he pushed the cell phone aside and picked up the book. He opened it to the page that was marked with the necklace, holding it so that the necklace didn't fall out. "Damn it Katie." Damon scoffed.

"What?" Elena asked and Damon just passed her the book.

"Are we seriously not going to look for her?" she asked after she red the note.

Damon picked up her cell phone off the desk. "Of course we're going to look for her." He scoffed as he walked past her, taking the necklace and the book out of her hands as he did.

* * *

"First Caroline now Katie?" Bonnie asked Elena and Damon from where she stood in the middle of the boarding house living room.

"We need your help finding her." Elena told Bonnie.

"I'm not sure I want to find her." Bonnie replied harshly. "I'm not going to help you bring her right back here to kill more people."

"Bonnie this is Katie were talking about. She's not going to kill anyone." Elena argued.

"Except maybe her grandfather." Damon added earning a glare from Elena.

"Not helping." She told him then looked back at Bonnie.

"Wherever she is, is where she needs to stay." Bonnie told them with a stern face. "It's bad enough that I let Stefan talk me into making Caroline a day walking ring." She told them. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to help you." She left.

"We have to find her Damon." Elena told him, seeing that he was worried too.

"Tell me something I don't know Elena." He told her snippily.

* * *

Three more weeks passed with no signs of Katie. Damon and Stefan stood in the library. "I don't get it. Most new vampires leave a trail of dead bodies in their wake." Damon complained as he paced.

"Katie's smart enough to cover her tracks. She clearly doesn't want to be found." Stefan said as he stood by with his arms crossed over his chest watching his brother pace. "Why are you so intent on finding her?"

"Why aren't you?" Damon snapped as he stopped pacing and glared at his brother. "This isn't just some random person who was accidentally turned. This is Katie. She's Elena's friend. He'll she's your friend. How are you not worried about her?" Damon asked with a frown.

"I am worried about her, but I also understand that she doesn't want to come home. So I'm not going to drag her back like you're trying to." Stefan argued. Damon glared at his brother then left with the intent of forcing Bonnie to do a locator spell.

* * *

Katie sat on a queen sized bed in a lamp lit, blue and white decorated five star hotel room in Nashville Tennessee. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, a steaming cup of coffee was in her hands that rested on them. A cute brunet guy was passed out in his boxers on the foot of the bed. Bite marks littered the parts of his body that would be covered with his clothes when he put them back on.

The hotel room was littered with empty beer bottles and a box of half eaten pizza was on the coffee table in the room. She knew how bad it looked, considering it looked like they got drunk and slept together while she fed on him, but it hadn't gone that far. They got drunk and she did feed on him, but they didn't have sex. They didn't even kiss. They just danced and she fed on him.

A knock sounded from the door making her eyes snap up from the guy to the door. "Room service."

She slid off of the bed and pulled on the robe that the hotel provided then answered the door. She let the guy holding a tray of food in the room, noticing the way he looked around as he set it on the kitchenette counter. Knowing that he was going to want a tip, Katie grabbed the passed out man's jeans that were laying on the floor, took out his wallet and pulled out a ten. "Thanks." She handed the room service guy the cash then watched him walk out the door.

She picked up her cup of coffee, sat back down on the bed and sipped it as she poked the guy in the side with her bright pink socked foot. The guy groaned and swatted at the air, but didn't wake up. So Katie nudged him harder. "What?" the guy groaned and tossed his arm over his eyes as if it were bright in the room.

"Get up." Katie told him, poking him in the side again.

"What time is it?" the guy asked as he pushed himself up and looked around.

"Time for you to get dressed and go." Katie answered earning a glare from him. She picked up his phone and looked at the time. "It's twelve thirty in the afternoon." She answered. "You mentioned last night that you have to go to work at two." She explained.

"Right, thanks." He told her with a yawn. "What's your name again?"

Katie laughed awkwardly because she couldn't remember his name either. "Katie."

"Mark." He said holding out his hand to her. She shook her head but took it, giving it a few shakes. "Nice to meet you Katie." He dropped her hand and finally noticed the bites. "What happened here?" he asked with a point at a bite mark on his toned pec.

"I bit you." she answered and he gave her a look that suggested she was the kinkiest person he had ever met. "You liked it."

"Huh, that's a new one." He said with a shrug. She had compelled him to forget what really happened last night before he passed out. She just sipped her coffee as he got dressed and picked his wallet up off of the coffee table. "Well, last night was fun. I'm gonna head out."

Katie put down her lukewarm coffee and followed him to the door. "Bye."

Katie was about to shut the door when she heard Damon's voice. "Looks like you've mastered the art of snatch, eat, erase." She looked down the hall to see Damon leaning on the wall.

"How did you find me?" She asked, unenthused as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"I finally convinced your little witch friend to do a locator spell." He told her with a cocky smirk as he pushed himself off of the wall and walked over to her. "Did you honestly think I wasn't going to come looking for you?"

"No, but I hoped you wouldn't." She answered not moving from the doorway.

"Are you going to let me in?" he asked with a look at the room behind her.

"Nope." She answered popping the p at the end of the word.

"Why not? You got another guy in there? Do I need to tell Tyler that you've been cheating on him?" he asked and Katie's hard face softened a bit at the mention of Tyler.

"No." she answered looking down at the floor. "To all of that now please leave." Katie tried to shut the door, but he stuck his hand out, stopping it.

"No." he looked down at her staring into her eyes. "I didn't drive all the way here to have you slam the door in my face. Now let me in, Katie Cat." He whispered yelled the last sentence with an aggravated flick of his brows.

"I'm not going back, Damon. So you might as well save your breath, turn around and go home." She said still not moving out of the way. Damon being Damon caught her off guard, threw her over his shoulder, stepped inside and shut the door. Katie tried to get out of his grasp, but he was stronger than her. "Fine, just…put me down." She told her as she went limp.

He threw her onto the bed knowing it wouldn't hurt her. "A lot has happened since you left." He told her as he looked around the room.

"I don't want to know." She told him as she sat up, scooted back to lean beck against the headboard and crossed her legs at the ankles.

"So if Jeremy tried to kill himself you wouldn't want to know about it?" he asked and Katie shook her head. "What about if your boyfriend is a werewolf?"

"That's just laughable." She replied flatly thinking he was just making stuff up to mess with her.

"It's true." He told her looking as serious as she had ever seen him. "Jeremy tried to kill himself the same night that Tyler wrecked crashed and almost killed you. That same night Katherine told me she never loved me and she never will." He proceeded to tell her everything that happened while she was gone. "And yesterday we planned on killing Katherine, but she had a witch link her to Elena. If we killed Katherine we killed Elena. So instead we locked her in the tomb with the moonstone." He finished with a sarcastic smile. "You sure you don't want to come home. It's _way_ more entertaining than this place."

"You really think I want to go back to my home, where my boyfriend is a werewolf that could kill me with one bite and my best friend hates me because of what I am?" she asked seriously.

"You really think Bonnie hates you?" Damon asked.

"Yes." She answered without hesitation.

"If she hates you then why did she charm this for you?" he asked as he held up a diamond crusted pierced filigree ring with a blue oval stone in the center of it.

"Is that-?" she asked getting cut off by Damon.

"A daylight ring? Yes." He answered and saw the faintest of smiles on her lips. "I'll make you a deal." He said as he closed his fist around the ring.

"Let me guess. You'll give me the ring if I come home." Katie said with an eye roll as she crossed her arms over her chest again.

"Yep, and no more feeding on people. It's blood bags or the Stefan diet." He told her hating the words that came out of his mouth, but he was doing what needed to be done to get Katie home and safe.

When she didn't automatically agree to come home Damon waved the ring at her as if to tempt her. "Does Tyler know what I am?" she asked as she leaned her head back on the headboard.

"No." Damon answered honestly. "He thinks you're at a long lost aunt's house."

"And my missing slash dead grandfather?" Katie asked.`

"Had a midlife crisis, bought a motorcycle and is off seeing the world." Damon answered as he sat down on the bed next to her, copying her stiiting position. "How did it feel, killing him?"

"Better than it should." She answered as she walked over to Damon and he stood up. "I'd thought a lot about becoming a vampire since I met you. If I ever wanted to be one, what I'd do if I ever did turn."

"Really?" He asked with a look at her across his shoulder and she hummed a positive answer. "What did you decide?" He asked quietly.

"That eternal life wasn't something I wanted. I didn't want to watch my friends get married, have kids and grow old without me. I love kids, I really did want to become a pediatrician. I wanted to get married and have kids of my own. I didn't want to rob myself of all the things that make life, life." she answered not looking at him but at the wall across from her. "But I decided that If I ever did turn the first thing I would do is make my grandfather pay for what he did to me."

"Why didn't you ever tell me any of this?" He asked making her finally look at him.

"Because I don't usually go blabbing my deepest darkest thoughts to people." She answered.

"I'm not people." He told her as he slid his hand into hers. "I'm your best friend." He threaded their fingers together. "You should tell me these things."

"Is that what we are? Best friends?" She asked a little amused as she closed her fingers around his.

"First and foremost? Yes. Plus you're still technically dating Tyler. So friends is all we can be." He told her with an eye roll. "Unless you want to break up with him like I've been trying to get you to do for forever now."

"I don't know what the hell I'm doing." Katie groaned and let go of his hand as she slid off of the bed and started pacing. "I don't want to go home, but I don't want to break up with Tyler... Everything is so messed up." She ran her hand through her hair, pushing it away from her face.

"All the more reason to come home and sort it out." Damon countered as he stood up and held the ring out to her. "Your friends need you." He grabbed her hands in his, holding them against his chest. "I need you." His pleading eyes boring into hers.

She looked into his eyes, each second that ticked by tearing her down. "I hate you." She sighed not meaning it as she let her head hang in defeat as she said, "Deal."

He took her right hand and slid the ring onto her ring finger. "Deal." He pulled her into him and pressed his lips to hers.

Katie knew he was going to kiss her as soon as she said deal, but she didn't expect it to feel so good. She had stayed away from intimacy strictly because she knew her emotions and everything else was in overdrive. Kissing Damon as a vampire was ten times better than when she was human and she found herself getting lost in him. Her hands practically had a mind of their own as they pushed his shirt up, breaking their intense kiss long enough for him to take his shirt off while she took her robe and tank top off leaving her in just a bra and short cheer shorts.

With nothing but lust in her eyes, she threw Damon onto the bed then crawled on top of him, straddling his hips. "You're not thinking straight." Damon warned her, hating that he couldn't let himself take advantage of her, but she kissed him effectively shutting him up. She eagerly ran her hands over his torso before sliding them up his arms to his hands that she pinned to the bed beside his head. She moved to kissing his neck. "You don't want to do this Katie Cat. I know you. You would never cheat on Tyler."

"Zip code rule." She whispered in his ear not thinking about anything but Damon and how every cell in her body wanted him.

"Really? A frat boy type excuse? Come on, your better than that." He scoffed, but when she started kissing him again he gave in or at least he let her believe he had. After indulging in her for a few minutes he rolled them over and pinned her down. "This isn't…you." He told her as he looked her in the eyes. "I know how good it feels as a new vampire and trust me I want you so bad right now." He practically growled the last words still looking between her bright green, glasses free eyes, as he let it sink in. "I'm not going to let you do something you will regret."

He watched as she came down off her oxytocin high, but unfortunately when you get that high you tend to plummet back down to the earth hard. When he saw tears slip from her eyes he knew she wasn't going to jump his bones again. However, he had missed her and selfishly couldn't make himself move off of her just yet. She sniffled and forced herself to stop crying. "Having second thoughts about stopping me?" She asked him quietly.

"Yep." He answered with a nod.

"Then you should've taken me up on the offer when you had the chance." She told him, her eyes turning angry. "Now let me go."

"You sure you won't attack me again?" He asked with a cocky smile and a playful flick of his brow. "I know how irresistible you find me."

"You're so damn cocky." she grunted as she jerked her hands from his tight grasp and tried to push him off of her. Damon started laughing as he rolled over and she stood up. "It's not funny." She scolded him as she wiped her eyes and grabbed her cheer duffle from the arm chair in the room.

"It's a little funny." He told her as he watched her grab a pair of dark wash distressed jean shorts and a plain black v neck t-shirt.

"It's not." She argued back flatly as she switched her cheer shorts for the jean ones. She caught him looking at her with lust in his eyes. "Stop it." She said as she pulled her shirt over her head.

"Stop what?" He asked with a smirk and a flick of his brows knowing she found it hard to resist.

"Looking at me like you want to eat me and doing that little eye smolder thing you do." She told him as she started picking up her things from where they were scattered around the room.

"What eye thing?" He asked doing the eye thing.

"That one. Stop it." She said as she swiped his shirt up off the floor and shoved it into his chest.

"Why are you so mad?" He asked in a playful tone, taking in how aggressive she was being.

"Because I can't control myself." She practically yelled at him. "I can't control the hunger or my emotions or…impulses, apparently." She ranted as she shoved things into her bag. "And you think it's funny. How funny is it going to be when I kiss Tyler and end up practically forcing him to sleep with me? It's a good thing vampires can't procreate or I'd end up in the same boat that Katherine tossed me out of." When she realized what she said she froze, her hand still holding the zipper pull of the zipped up duffle bag.

"You know?" Damon asked as he walked over to her and tried to look at her face but she looked away.

"Know what?" Katie asked, wiping a tear before she threw the strap over her shoulder.

Damon grabbed her chin and made her look at him, his eyes bouncing between hers, "That you were pregnant."

"How do you know about that?" She asked quietly as she swiped his hand from her chin.

"I heard the second heart beat when I snuck into the ICU and fed you my blood." He answered. "How long had you known?"

"I started suspecting when I threw up from the scent of fajitas the night of the founder's parade, but I didn't know for sure until I woke up in the hospital. I asked them to do a pregnancy test and it came back positive."

"Does Tyler know?" Damon asked.

Katie looked down at the floor. "He was there when they did a second ultrasound, confirming my suspensions that I had lost the baby."

"Damn." Damon didn't know what to say. "That sucks."

"That's the cherry on top of the pile of reasons why I don't want to go back, Damon. Just thinking about it..." her voice cracked and she hugged herself, tears slipping down her cheeks. "It hurts."

"I know, Katie Cat." He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she wrapped hers around his torso, crying into his neck as he cupped the back of her head in his hand. "I know, but you have to."

After a few minutes of just hugging him with his chin resting on the top of her head she let him go and stepped back. "I'm a freaking basket case." She complained as she wiped her eyes for what felt like the hundredth time.

"No you're a new vampire that's overindulged in human blood." Damon argued back. "But don't think about all of that. Think about what it's going to feel like to have the sun on your skin for the first time in almost a month."

Just the thought warmed her a little inside. "Okay." She nodded, pushing the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder.

* * *

Katie leaned her head against the passenger window of Damon's car, taking in the sun on her face. Thinking about how it was possible that she could even be in the sun she turned her eyes to the ring on her finger. Damon noticed her run her finger over it, taking in how pretty and timeless it was. "Who picked this out?" She asked holding up her hand at him.

"Me. Right before I had your necklace made." He answered knowing what conversation he was about to have with her.

"What?" She asked quickly putting two and two together realizing that he had intended on turning her.

"Before I gave you your necklace I thought seriously about turning you." He told her. "But I couldn't make myself do that to you no matter how bad I wanted you to be in my life forever." When she didn't say anything he kept talking. "The ring originally had a sapphire in it, but I had it replaced with a lapis lazuli. That way, it could be a daylight ring. The sapphire from the ring was re-cut and put into your necklace."

"Where did you have all this done?" Katie asked.

"A trusted jewelry shop. Why?" He drawled.

"Could Katherine have found out about you making this ring?" She asked not looking at him, but at the road ahead of them.

"I don't know. She is a sneaky bitch so...probably." he answered, confused.

"Son of a bitch." Katie scoffed and shook her head turning her eyes to her door window.

"Am I missing something here?" Damon asked.

"Katherine gave me a message for you before she killed me and I didn't understand it. I thought maybe she thought she was doing me a favor by keeping me from being a teen mom, but I didn't have the whole picture." Katie ranted with flared nostrils.

"What was the message, Katie?" Damon asked getting aggravated.

"She told me to tell you you're welcome." Katie said finally looking at him and he couldn't tell if she was mad at him or Katherine. "She turned Caroline to send a message to you and Stefan. She turned me for you."

Damon didn't know what to say so to keep from saying the wrong thing and unintentionally stoking the embers of Katie's anger he chose to not say anything.

After a while, when Katie settled down she asked, "Were you thinking about turning me on our first date? When you gave me the necklace?" She asked looking away from the window to stare at the side of his face.

He smiled a little at the memory of giving her the necklace and hummed a positive answer.

"Why didn't you?" She asked quietly.

"Because I care about you and I couldn't make myself make your life harder than it already was for selfish reasons." He answered honestly. He glanced over at her to see her hand on her chest where her pendant used to rest. "You look naked without it."

"I feel naked without it." She dropped her hand from her chest with a heavy sigh.

"Pretty soon you'll feel that way about that ring." He told her making her look down at it. "You never said if you liked it or not."

"It's beautiful. Just like everything else you've ever given me." She said with a small smile that he returned.

As she turned her eyes to the road ahead of them a big ball of dread formed in the pit of her stomach. She didn't want to go back to Tyler, Elena, Caroline, Bonnie and her house that was filled with more bad memories than good. However she knew it what she needed to do. It wasn't fair to leave everyone behind just because she didn't want to face them after killing someone and feeding on countless guys since she turned.


	18. Chapter 18

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 18**

Damon glanced over at Katie where she sat in the passenger seat of his car with her head leaning uncomfortably on the window beside her as she slept. Every once in a while an incriminatingly raunchy moan would leave her parted lips.

~*Dreaming*~

"Elijah." Katie moaned from where she laid in the bed of the room all of her previous dreams had taken place in. Only a corset remained on her body while the brunette man she had been kissing in her past dreams laid on top of her, kissing her neck as he ran his hand down her side, over her hip to her outer thigh that he gripped, pulling her leg up and around him.

"Hannah." He replied as he pulled away from her neck and looked her deep in the eyes before he pressed his lips to hers in a passionate kiss that made her tighten her legs around his hips, needing him as close as possible.

He attacked her neck sinking his teeth into her as he sank himself into her, pulling a moan from her lips that was filled with both pleasure and pain. "Yes," she sighed writhing against him as he pulled back, blood on his lips as he kissed her chest. "Ah, yes." They road the waves until they engulfed them. Hannah threw her head back with her eyes squeezed closed in pure ecstasy. When she opened them the dream ended.

~*End of Dream*~

Katie shot straight up in the seat with a gasp like she always did when her dreams abruptly ended. "Good dream?" She heard Damon ask and looked over to see him smirking at her.

"I don't know if good is the word I'd use." she sighed and wiped at her face to make sure there was no drool on it.

"Are you sure? Because you were making some serious happy noises over there." He said not looking away from the road.

"No I wasn't." she argued with a slight blush on her cheeks.

"Really? Then what do you call, mmm ah yes mmahh?" Damon asked mimicking her moans in a high pitched voice. "Seriously, who were you dreaming about?"

Her face turned as red as a tomato. "I don't remember." She answered honestly.

"What? What do you mean you don't remember?" Damon asked with a displeased face.

"I mean I don't remember. All I remember is that I've never seen him before." Katie replied turning in her seat to look at him, leaning her shoulder against the back rest. "It doesn't matter." She brushed it off not wanting to talk about her weird nonsensical dreams. "How long have we been driving? Shouldn't we be home by now?"

"Yeah, we should, but someone took Elena. Bonnie did a locator spell so we are meeting Stefan there to get her back." he told her as he took a turn onto a dirt road. "We're actually really close." he grabbed a blood bag out of the cooler in the back seat.

"Do we know who took her?" Katie asked trying to breathe through her mouth and not look at the blood bag.

"Someone was hunting Katherine in 1864. That's why she tricked everyone into believing that she died in the tomb. So we're assuming whoever was after her is after Elena since she's Katherine's doppelganger." Damon explained as he glanced over and noticed Katie fighting the urge to take the blood bag from him. "And that," he pointed to the blood vessels moving under her eyes, "is why you're going to wait for us in the car."

"I'm not going to fight you on that one." She agreed. "The last thing I want to do is hurt Elena."

When they saw Elena's car, Stefan leaning against it with a black duffel bag on the hood, Damon pulled up next to it and they got out. Stefan grabbed the bag and headed to the house that Elena was being held hostage in. "Wait." Damon called making Stefan stop and turn back to his brother. "Let me see that." He pointed to the bag that Stefan had slung over his shoulder.

Stefan handed it over. "What are you doing?" he asked as Damon set the bag on the ground and opened it, kneeling down as he rummaged through the weapons inside.

Damon pulled out some kind of grenade. "I'm not going to leave Katie defenseless." He said as if it were the obvious answer.

"You are aware that she's a vampire now and not some puny human that needs your protection right?" Stefan asked as Katie walked over to stand next to Damon.

"Yes, and you realize that whoever has Elena is probably whoever was after Katherine in 1864 and before that right?" Damon asked as he handed Katie the grenade.

"Yeah. What's your point?" Stefan asked as he picked the bag back up and tossed it over his shoulder again.

"That puts them at over five hundred years old and strong. Are you even sure you want to do this? I can handle it on my own." Damon asked as Katie took a few steps back, letting the brothers work out their problems.

"Yeah, I'm certain I want to do it." Stefan answered.

"Because if we go in that house we may not come back out." Damon pointed out.

"Alright then I won't come back out." Stefan answered without hesitation.

"So noble Stefan." Damon popped off.

Stefan scoffed and shook his head. "I…can't think of a better reason to die, but if you want to stay here with Katie I'll totally understand." Stefan left it at that and headed to the house.

Damon turned back to Katie. "Stay in the car. If someone comes at you, pull the pin, open the door and toss it out. Don't let it get on you or it will burn like a bitch."

"Okay." Katie nodded and Damon turned to walk off but she grabbed his hand, stopping him. When he turned back to her she pressed her lips to his and managed to keep it short and sweet. "Please come back out." He just looked into her eyes and nodded then sped over to Stefan who was still walking away from them.

Katie sat in the car, eyes on her surrounding as she held the grenade in her hand just in case, but after a long hour and a half Katie saw Damon, Elena and Stefan walk through the trees. She let them get fairly close before she got out of the car. The scent of Elena's blood hit her nose making her turn her back on them, not wanting Elena to see her eyes. She forced her self not to breathe and to push back the urge to hurt her friend. "Katie?" Elena asked so Katie turned around. "Oh my god, you're okay!" Elena threw her arms around her. All this did was waft the scent up Katie's nose forcing her to smell it. Katie managed to force back the blood that was rushing to her eyes and hugged Elena back. "Where were you?" Elena asked as she let her go and walked back over to stand next to Stefan.

"Nashville." Katie answered distractedly.

"Why did you run away?" Elena asked and Katie didn't answer. "Because you killed your grandfather?" Elena prodded and Damon noticed Katie pick up her foot and start tapping the toe of her converse into the dirt, something she did when she was trying to keep it together.

"Elena." Damon spoke up getting her attention, "Why don't we save the questions for some other time? Like when you don't have dried blood on your shirt." He told her with a tight lipped smile and a flick of his brows.

"Right, yeah, sorry." She said as she looked at Stefan who just gave her a tight lipped smile of his own. "Let's go home."

Katie watched as Stefan and Elena got in her car then let her eyes travel around her, wondering if she would be able to out run Damon because just after what happened with Elena…the question's and mentions of her grandfather and the fact that she could smell the blood on her…she wanted to bolt again. "Don't do it." She heard Damon beside her. "Don't run. I'm older and faster."

"And you'll drag me back kicking and screaming if I try?" she asked looking at him across her shoulder.

"Get in the car." He told her with his 'or you will not like me' voice. Seeing no other options she walked around to the passenger side of his car and climbed in.

"So who took Elena and why?" Katie asked as they headed back the way they came.

"Long story short? She was kidnapped by two idiots, Rose and Trevor, to be handed over to an original vampire named Elijah who wants to sacrifice her to break the sun and the moon curse." He answered leaving out a lot of detail.

"I thought the moonstone broke the curse." Katie asked.

"So did we, but according to the two idiots the moonstone binds the curse and the sacrifice of the doppelganger breaks it." Damon answered.

"Damn." Katie said as she turned her eyes out of the passenger side window. "And I thought it sucked to be me right now. At lease I don't have people trying to sacrifice me to break some ancient curse."

"Way to look on the bright side." Damon said with a smile at her across his shoulder.

"Wait, did you say his name was Elijah?" Katie asked, the name striking a cord in her brain.

"Yeah, why?" he asked with a glance over at her.

"I don't know why, but that name sounds familiar." She said with a confused shake of her head. "It's not important." She brushed it off.

They had been driving for an hour when Damon broke the comfortable silence. "So have you decided to break up with Tyler or was that kiss back there one of those, just in case you die, kisses?"

"It was a, I don't know what the hell I want, but I know I still have feelings for you and don't want you to die, kiss." She answered not looking at him. "Will you please stop asking me to break up with Tyler? All of this is hard enough without you hounding me to break up with him. I didn't beg you to stop perusing Katherine."

Damon just sighed and grabbed her hand off of her knee, pressing a kiss to the back of it. "Okay, I'll stop pushing you to break up with the wolf boy."

"Thank you." she told him as he let their hands rest on her knee.

After they passed the now entering Mystic Falls sign Damon broke the silence again. "You can stay at the boarding house tonight if you want to. I know you probably don't want to go to your house just yet."

"Thanks."

* * *

"You're old room is yours for as long as you want." Damon told her as they walked through the front door of the boarding house.

"This place has felt like more of a home than my house ever did." Katie thought out loud. "Sorority girls, Matt's mom and getting my skull cracked like an egg aside, I have more good memories here than bad."

"You know I never slept with any of them right?" He asked as he poured two crystal glasses a fourth of the way full with what ever alcohol was in the crystal decanter in the living room then handed one to her.

"Well, I know you didn't sleep with Matt's mom." She said before she took a sip of her drink.

"I didn't sleep with any of the other girls either." He told her as she sat down. "I figured you should know."

"Why? Your sex life is none of my business." Katie asked before she downed the rest of the alcohol then held the glass back out to him.

"I know you have a lot of thinking and figuring out to do." He told her as she poured more of the amber liquid into the glass filling it half way this time. "And when the time comes for you to choose between Tyler and me, I want you to know that I haven't been with any one since you." he held the glass out to her.

"What about Katherine?" she asked as she took the glass.

"What about her?" he asked meaning that she was out of his life now.

"Have you two hooked up since she came back into town?" she asked then took a large drink.

"No." he answered turning his eyes to the glass in his hands. "We got close, but before things went too far I stopped it. That's when she told her that she never loved me." He answered frowning at his glass.

She downed the rest of hers as he got up then set it on the table next to the decanter making Damon look at her. "Thank you for telling me." She gave him a small smile then headed to her room.

She was sitting at the desk in the room, her head resting in her hand as she stared off into the distance in thought, when she heard a knock on her door. "Who is it?"

"The Easter bunny." Damon replied from the other side so she got up and opened the door. She held her diary up, her necklace hanging out of it's pages. "I figured this might help." He extending it out to her and she took it with skeptical eyes. "Don't worry, I didn't vandalize it or read anything other than the note you left for me." He told her with a small smile.

"Thank you." a small smile touched her lips as she looked down at the green faux leather book then looked back up at Damon.

"You're welcome." He told her with a half smile that showed off his smile lines. "Goodnight."

"Night." She told him quietly as he turned from her and walked away. When she could no longer see his back she shut the door and walked back over to her desk.

With a heavy sigh she sat down, opened the book and picked up a pen. "Hey, Journal, It's been a while, I know, and I'm sorry, but I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of a messy situation. I got in a car wreck with Tyler, Caroline and Matt. Tyler and Matt were fine, but Caroline and I almost died. We would have it Damon hadn't given us his blood and healed us. But somehow Katherine found out that we had vampire blood in our system and turned us. Caroline stayed in Mystic falls and got help from Damon and Stefan, so she's doing fine. She killed some random carnival worker, but she's supposedly taking being a vampire in stride. I on the other hand killed my grandfather and ran. So I didn't have Damon and Stefan's help. Apparently you can indulge too much as a new vampire and it keeps everything super heightened. So my emotions are all over the place and I don't want to deal with anything. Basically all I can think about is blood and when I'm going to get my next hit. So until I get leveled out I can't make any super important decisions. No one has told me I can't I just know I'm not thinking straight right now. I feel like a flight risk or a ticking time bomb. I hate myself and the things I have done."

She stopped writing and took a deep breath as she decided to switch gears. "On a completely different note I was three weeks pregnant before Katherine killed me. Damon knew, he heard the baby's heart beat when he gave me his blood to heal me. Tyler found out when he visited me in the hospital and on that same day he found out that we lost the baby. He thinks it's his fault. I tried to convince him that it wasn't, but I know he didn't believe me. I couldn't tell him that it was Katherine's fault. Then today I learned that he triggered his werewolf curse, that I didn't know about, while I was gone. Now every full moon he will turn and his bite can kill me. Everything in me is telling me that I need to break up with him. I know I'm not thinking clearly, but I can feel that this opinion isn't going to change. It has nothing to do with Damon and how I've always felt about him. Okay, that's a lie. It does have to do with Damon." She took a deep breath as a tear slipped down her cheek. "Since I took a step back from my life I realized that while I do love Tyler, our relationship was doomed from the beginning. If it wasn't he wouldn't have kissed Matt's mom and I wouldn't have kissed Damon several times while I was dating Tyler. And now that we've lost a baby, he's become a werewolf and I've become a vampire it's pretty obvious that the universe doesn't want us to be together. Not to mention that I can't even think about him with out thinking about what it would have been like to have a baby, something I will never be able to experience now. It's going to hurt like hell, but I have to let him go." She stopped writing to wipe a tear from her face before it fell onto the pages of the book.

"I have a lot of hurdles to jump. Like going to my house, facing my friends and answering their questions, breaking up with Tyler in person because I'm not going to do the shitty thing and break up with him over the phone or through text, going to school where I'll be surrounded by humans and have to keep what I am a secret, possibly getting my job at The Grill back. I don't want to go back to work, but I still have bills to pay and more of them than I used to since I killed Grandpa. Coming home feels like I'm trying to put my feet in a pair of shoes that I've outgrown. Like I don't belong here anymore. If it wasn't for Damon and his support, I wouldn't be here at all. I'd still be back in Nashville binging on blood booze every night. Speaking of night, it's dark outside and I have a daylight ring now. I need to get my days and nights switched back around. So…goodnight journal."

She put the cap back on the pen, closed the book and pushed it away from her. Thinking that a shower would make her sleepy she grabbed a clean tank top and cheer shorts out of her bag and headed to the bathroom connected to her room. When she was done she laid down in the bed and closed her eyes, but sleep didn't come. After laying there for four hours, she gave up and slipped from the bed. Not letting her self stop to think it over she let her bare feet carry her to Damon's room. She didn't knock and didn't announce herself as she walked over to his bed and slid between the sheets. "Katie?" Damon asked sleepily.

"I couldn't sleep." She whispered as he turned to face her. Even though it was pitch black in the room she could see the frown on his face perfectly.

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to be in here." He whispered back, his eyes bouncing between hers. "Unless you've broken up with Tyler."

"I don't think it's smart for me to leave the house right now, so no I didn't." she answered as he slid her hand along her side. He couldn't help but noticed the implications in what she'd just said, but he had told her he was going to stop pushing. So he didn't ask. "Is it considered cheating if I just ask you to hold me?" she asked resting her hand on to his nude chest.

"I should probably say yes." He answered as he turned onto his back. "But, no." he moved his arm above her head. "Come here." She scooted over letting him replace the pillow her head was on with his arm that he wrapped around her as she tucked herself into his side. He couldn't help placing a kiss to her head. "Goodnight, Katie Cat."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his shoulder. "Goodnight, Damon."

* * *

Katie sat straight up in bed, breathing hard from her dream as the sound of Damon's shower running hit her ears and she looked up to see him step into the shower, the fogged glass clouding her view of him. "Are you _trying_ to torture me?" Katie asked and she saw Damon's head turn in her direction before he moved to stick his head out from the edge of the glass.

"I tried to wake you, but you were dead to the world." He said with a shrug then went back to showering. "You should go get dressed and drink some blood before Elena gets here." He told her as she slid from the bed and walked over to lean on the archway of the bathroom.

"How much should I be drinking? Obviously I've been drinking too much." She asked in no hurry to leave the show she was getting to watch.

"Right now? One blood bag for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Snacking on regular food and alcohol helps too." He told her noticing where she was standing. "You're welcome to join me." The seductive tone of his voice sent sparks through her.

Her feet brought her to look behind the glass, but she stopped herself before she stepped into the shower clothes and all. "You know I can't do that."

"It was a test." He pointed out then started rinsing the shampoo from his dark hair. "You passed." When he was done he opened his eyes to see her still watching him. "If you keep looking at me like that you'll fail though."

Katie blinked as if coming out of a daze. "Right." She sighed as he stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his hips. "Get dressed, have breakfast and jump my first hurdle." She reminded herself out loud as she started walking over to his door.

"Hey." Damon's stopped her as she grabbed the doorknob and she turned to see him walking over to her. "If I'm around you and you get too on edge, start losing control or just feel like you need to get out of whatever situation you might be in…give me a sign and I'll figure out how get you somewhere safe. Okay?" he told her, his face inches from hers.

"Okay." She answered as she tried to think about a secret sign to give him. "If I need you I'll tuck my hair behind my ear."

Damon tucked her sleep mussed hair behind her ear and gave her a smile. "Okay." Katie gave him a small smile back then pulled the door open and went to her room.

After putting on a form fitting, dark blue racer back tank top and a pair of jean shorts she brushed her hair and put it in a pony tail, leaving her bangs free so that she could tuck them behind her ear if she needed to, then headed down to the basement to grab a blood bag. She stopped in her tracks when she saw a short haired brunette grabbing a bag out of the deep freezer. "Um, hi." Katie said announcing her presence.

"Oh, hi." The woman replied and tossed Katie the blood bag. "You must be Katie. Stefan warned me I might run into you this morning." Katie couldn't help but notice her British accent.

"Yeah and you are…?" Katie asked.

"Sorry, I'm Rose." She introduced herself as she grabbed another bag and shut the freezer.

"Oh…kay." Katie drawled as she watched Rose walk around her. "I don't mean to sound like a bitch, but…why are you here?"

"Because you and your friends need my help." She answered as they walked up the stairs and to the kitchen. "Elijah may be dead, but the originals will still come for Elena."

"Oh." Katie said as she walked over to the cabinet grabbed a glass and held it out to Rose who waved her off and simply sipped the blood from the bags tube. "Well," Katie paused to rip the corner of the bag open with her teeth and started pouring it into the glass, "then I guess I'm glad you're here."

She tossed the empty bag in the trash and headed to the living room, leaving Rose in the kitchen. Damon and Stefan were already in the living room waiting on Elena so everyone could talk. Katie sat down next to Damon, tucking her feet up beside her on the couch. "How are you?" Stefan asked from where he sat on the other couch across from her.

"I've been better, but I've also been worse." She answered vaguely with a shrug.

"You just need to take some time to get reconnected to your humanity." Stefan told her as he leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees with a drink of his own in his hands. Katie could tell by the smell of it that it wasn't human blood. "You should probably spend some time with Tyler since he's the only other connection you have to your humanity besides your friends."

"No." Katie told him with a shake of her head.

"Well you can't just stay cooped up in here from now on." Stefan argued and Katie knew he was doing it because he cared about her, but she couldn't be around Tyler right now.

"Stefan." Damon spoke up with a warning tone.

"Well she can't. She needs to get out and learn to be around humans." Stefan argued. "Just because Katherine turned her for you doesn't mean you get to treat her like a piece of property."

"I'm not and she needs to figure things out on her own. Pushing her to be with Tyler will only make things worse." Damon argued back.

They were talking about her like she wasn't even in the room and it was pissing her off. "You two know I'm sitting right here and I can make decisions for myself right?" she asked as she dropped her feet off the couch and sat up straight, glaring at both of them.

"I think you've proven that your decisions are reckless." Stefan pointed out.

"Look, I know you probably think you know what's best for me and don't get me wrong I appreciate it, but I need you to back off and let _me_ figure out how to fit myself back into my life." She said realizing that if she would've had this conversation yesterday she would be vamping out just from aggravation.

"I don't know the whole story, but from what I've over heard I agree with her." Rose spoke up and Katie looked back to see her standing behind her.

She was about to say something else when they heard a knock on the door and Stefan went to answer it. "What's this about?" She heard Elena ask as she walked into the room and her eyes landed on Rose. "You." Rose gave her an awkward wave as Elena looked back and forth between Rose and Stefan. When she noticed Katie in the room she asked, "Katie, how are you?"

"A little better, I guess." She shrugged.

"Let's give them a minute." Stefan told Rose and gave Damon a look.

Damon looked at Katie. "I'm good." She told him with a nod as she held up her glass of blood. Damon nodded back and followed Stefan and Rose to the library. "To answer your question from yesterday, I ran because…I was scared. I still am."

"Why Nashville?" Elena asked.

"Because I like music?" Katie answered, but it sounded more like a question. "I don't know I just freaked, got in the car and started driving."

"But why didn't you call somebody, me, Damon, Bonnie…anybody?" Elena asked like Katie knew she was going to, but hoped she wouldn't.

Katie took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before she let it out. "Like I said, I was scared…of hurting someone…or worse." She turned from Elena and walked into the living room, leaning her hip against the back of the couch. "Most of all, I think I was afraid that everyone would treat me different…look at me like you're looking at me right now, like I'm some kind of freak that you pity." Katie said as she picked up her foot and started tapping the end of her toe into the floor as she took a drink of blood.

"I hate that this happened, but I don't pity you." Elena told her with a frown.

"I killed my grandfather and everyone's acting like it's no big deal." Katie said as she turned her eyes to the floor.

"You're a vampire now. Killing people is part of the programming and the people who love you understand that and the hell that man put you through." Elena told her sternly. "I know you've always considered Bonnie your best, best friend and you think Caroline and I are too judgmental, but no one is judging you, Katie." Katie looked up at Elena with tears pooling in her eyes. "We just don't want you to give in to the bad in you and throw away everything you've worked so hard for."

"I'm sorry I ran." Katie replied as she blinked and a tear slipped, but she quickly wiped it away.

"I'm just glad you came back." Elena told her as they headed to the library.

When they walking into the library Damon could tell Katie had been crying and when she got close to him he brushed her bangs out of her face and cupped her cheek in his hand. "You okay?" she just took his hand off her face and nodded, all too aware of the three sets of eyes on them at the moment.

"They're cute together." Rose piped up, talking to Elena and Stefan.

"They're not together." Elena said then stopped and looked at Katie where she sat down in the chair that Damon was standing behind. "Are you?"

"No." Katie answered as she pulled her feet up into the chair and took a drink. "Let's get this little powwow started shall we?"

"Okay." Rose started, "you have to understand that I only know what I've picked up over the years and I don't know what's true and what's not true. That's the problem with all this vampire crap, but Klaus I _know_ is real." Rose told them as she paced the area in front of the window that had been replaced since the tomb vamps broke it.

"Who is he?" Elena asked from where she sat on the dark brown leather couch with her arms crossed over her chest.

"One of the originals." Damon answered as he placed his hands on the back of Katie's chair. "It's a legend."

"One of the first generation of Vampires." Stefan added from where he sat on the arm of the other armchair in the room, across from Damon and Katie.

"Like Elijah?" Elena asked.

"No. Elijah was the Easter bunny compared to Klaus. He's a foot solider. Klaus is the real deal." Rose answered.

"Klaus is known to be the oldest." Stefan added. Katie just sat there quietly, drinking her glass of blood as she listened to the vampire history lesson and focused on not focusing on the human in the room.

"Okay so you're saying that the oldest vampire in the history of time is coming after me?" Elena asked.

"No." "Yes." Stefan and Rose answered at the same time.

"No. What they're saying is…I mean, if what they're saying is true…" Damon said as he moved from behind Katie to stand next to Rose.

"Which it is." Rose chipped in.

"And you're not just saying it so we don't kill you…" Damon continued.

"Which I'm not." Rose chipped in again.

"Then we're looking at a solid… maybe." Damon told Elena then glanced at Katie to see how she was doing around Elena. She just looked at him and took a drink of the blood in her glass.

"Look Elijah's dead, right? So no one else even knows that you exist." Stefan said as he stood up and sat down on the couch next to Elena.

"Not that you know of." Rose chipped in.

"That's not helping." Damon told Rose with an aggravated look.

"Look I've never even met anyone who's laid eyes on him." Stefan told Elena. "I mean we're talking centuries of truth mixed with fiction." He told Damon, Rose and Katie then looked back at Elena. "I mean we don't know what's real. For all we know he could just be some sort of stupid bedtime story."

"He's real." Rose insisted making everyone look at her. "And he doesn't give up. If he wants something he gets it. If you're not afraid of Klaus then you're an idiot."

"All right, we're shaking." Damon said with a look at Rose. "You've made your point."

He walked back over to stand behind Katie as Elena grabbed her school bag and stood up. "Where are you going?" Stefan asked.

Elena stopped and looked back at him. "School. I'm late." She looked at Katie. "So are you."

"I'm not going back just yet." Katie answered as she took the last drink of the blood she had been sipping on the entire time. "And can we keep the fact that I am home between us, Caroline and Bonnie for now?" Elena gave her a nod.

"Let me grab my stuff. I'll go with you." Stefan said getting Elena's attention.

"That's okay. I know where it is." Elena replied then walked away.

"She's in denial." Damon whispered in Katie's ear.

Stefan gave him a brooding look and said, "Shut up Damon." then left the room.

"Do you have my phone?" Katie asked as she looked over her shoulder at Damon who nodded. "Can I have it please?"

"Can you promise me you won't do anything stupid?" he asked with a smirk.

"Like what, call sheriff Forbes and tell her I'm a vampire?" Katie popped off. "I'm bored and it had all my music on it." she told him with an eye roll as she held out her hand.

"Fine." Damon pulled her phone out of his pocket and placed it in her hand. She flipped it around to see that he had changed her background picture to the one of them kissing. "I thought I deleted this picture." She said as she stood up and turned to him.

"You did, but you failed to delete it from the trash file." He told her with a cocky smirk.

"Did you go through everything on my phone?" she asked with a frown.

"Just your pictures, text messages, search history and call history." He answered as he watched her stick her phone in her back pocket and he couldn't help but noticed that she didn't change the picture.

"So…yes." She answered for him.

"I was looking for clues to where you disappeared to. I wasn't being nosy." He defended himself. "But if I'm being honest Tyler sends you way too many pictures of himself." He told her and she rolled her eyes and started heading to her room.

She could hear him following her. "He only did it because he knew I would send him one of me in return." she replied not looking behind her.

"Then why aren't there any pictures of you in the text history?" he asked curiously.

"Because I hate pictures of myself so I deleted them from the text history and the pictures folder." She answered simply as she walked into her room and started digging around in her duffel bag.

"Then why weren't they in the trash folder?" he asked with a tone that suggested he caught her in a lie.

She pulled a speaker out of her bag, plugged her phone into it and clicked on a random song from her play list. "Addicted" by Simple Plan started playing as Katie walked over to Damon. "Because I deleted them from the trash folder." She told him as she stopped just a few inches away from him as she slid her hands up his chest to rest on each side of his neck. Her statement let him know that she knew that the trash folder on a phone existed and she purposely left the picture of her and Damon in it. "I couldn't make myself delete us." she told him quietly as she made herself look from his chest to his eyes. "Even though I saved the picture on my computer too." She added with a small smile

Damon smiled when what she said sank in. "Please tell me you had your close on in the pictures you sent him." Katie just pursed her lips and moved them to the side as she looked away from his eyes to her hands on his neck. "No fair. You never sent me naked pictures." He complained with a pout that made her smile.

"You never asked for them." She replied with a smile. "Besides, you didn't need them. I woke up half naked in your bed every morning while we were together." She pointed out as she took her hands off him, even though it wasn't what she wanted to do, and made herself walk away from him to sit down on the side of her bed. "And I wasn't naked, I had a bra and shorts on."

"I'm totally stealing his phone and deleting the pictures you sent him." He said walking over to lean against the post of the foot board.

"I won't stop you." she told him as she grabbed her phone and clicked on another random song then hit the home button bringing up the picture of them. She looked at it for a second before she set her phone down and started picking at her cuticles. He leaned down and placed his hand over hers, stopping her nervous habit as he gave her a questioning look. "I'm fighting with everything in me not to kiss you right now." She admitted with pained eyes.

"Then I will see myself out." He told her as he stood up and walked away, leaving her alone in her room. As soon as her door was shut she relaxed and laid back on her bed closing her eyes as she let herself be immersed by the music filling her room.

She lost track of time and was almost asleep when a knock on her door pulled her from her zen state. "Yeah?" she called and her door opened and Damon walked in.

"Rose and I are going to meet a friend of hers, see what we can find out about Klaus." He said as he walked in, picked up her duffel bag and started looking for a pair of socks. Instead he found a pair of cobalt blue lace panties. "Oooh, I like these." Katie jerked them out of his hand, shoved them back into the bag and took it from him.

"So?" she asked with a frown.

"So I'm not going to leave you here by yourself." He pointed out. Katie rolled her eyes and grabbed a pair of rolled up socks out of her bag. "You're not going to fight me on this?" he asked surprised that she was letting him tell her what to do.

"Would you give in and let me stay here if I did?" she asked with a look up at him through her lashes as she put her socks on.

"No." he answered as he picked her shoes up and handed them to her.

"That's what I thought." she said as she took them from him.

* * *

The car ride was mostly quiet other than Damon and Rose talking about random things here and there. Katie zoned out for most of it, not even noticing that Damon would glance back at her every once in a while with a worried look.

Katie was pulled from her thoughts when they pulled into a parking garage, parked the car and got out. "Back entrance. How convenient." Damon said as he walked around the front of the car to Katie and Rose.

"That's the point. We can't all have little daylight rings." Rose said as she wiggled her hand at him and Damon flashed his ring back.

"How do you know this Slater guys even here?" Damon asked.

"I called him. He's here. He's always here." Rose answered.

"Good." In a flash Damon pinned Rose to one of the concrete columns of the parking garage. "Just one thing, if you are setting us up in any way, I will rip your heart out and shove it down your throat. It's something I'm very good at." He said with a bragging voice and a shoulder shrug.

Just as fast as he pinned her to the column Rose spun him around and pinned him to the car. "I'm older than you and stronger. Don't get on my bad side." She let him go and he turned to face her. "You can trust me." She turned around and headed to the coffee shop.

"Was all that really necessary?" Katie asked making Damon look at her.

"Do you trust her?" he asked not answering her question as they both started following Rose.

"I don't not trust her." Katie answered using a double negative.

"You're no help." He told her playfully.

"Yeah, I know." Katie said with a small smile as they walked into the coffee shop.

Rose started taking off her jacket even though the whole front of the place was nothing but glass, letting the sunlight in. "Whoa, what about the, uh…sunlight?" Damon asked her quietly.

"It's double-paned and tempered. UV rays can't penetrate." Rose answered as she put her jacket on the back of a chair at the bar. "See the appeal now?" she asked and Damon just hummed while Katie turned her eyes to a guy walking over to them.

"That and the free wi-fi." He added with a smile before he and Rose hugged. "What are you doing here?"

"It's a long story, but I want you to meet," she motioned over at Damon and Katie.

"Damon Salvatore." The guy she assumed to be Slater finished Rose's sentence. "Turned 1864, Mystic Falls, by Katherine pierce, AKA Katerina Petrova." Damon gave the guy a skeptical look as he looked at Katie. "You…I don't know, sorry." He said as he held his hand out to her.

"Katie Finnegan. Turned 2010, by way of Damon Salvatore." She told him with a smile making Damon look at her with a questioning frown. She lot go of Slater's hand. "What? He seems like the kind of guy that likes his facts." She said with a shrug.

"She's right. I am." Slater answered then looked at Rose. "So I take it I was right. What I told you about the tomb under the church?" he asked.

"Yes. It was right. Thank you for the tip." Rose told him with a smile and a nod.

Katie and Damon looked at him as he extended his hand out to Damon. "It's nice to meet you." Damon still frowned at him as he shook his hand. "Maybe." He added gathering that Damon didn't seem to like him much. "What's goin' on, Rose? Where's uh, Trevor?"

Damon pursed his lips and looked away from the guy. When he saw Katie giving him a questioning look he shook his head at her silently telling her Trevor was dead. "Oh." Katie whispered.

Damon and Rose filled Slater in on what happened to Trevor as they all ordered coffee then sat down at a square table near the window, Katie chose the seat between Damon and Slater that faced the window. She zoned out only half listening to them talk as she watched the people outside. Eventually she settled for watching a guy sitting on the sidewalk playing an acoustic guitar. His guitar case was open for people to toss in tips. Most people tossed in coins, but when a man in a black suit walked up and tossed in a hundred dollar bill in it and scooped up a hand full of coins, an odd feeling grew in the pit of her stomach and pulled at her chest.

Her heart stopped when he looked up and her eyes landed on his face. It was the man she had been seeing in her dreams every night. He looked different, his hair was shorter and he was clean shaven in modern day clothes, but it was definitely him. Damon noticed her get tense and he watched her in case she tucked her hair behind her ear, but she never did so he didn't think anything of it.

She thought hard about her dreams, she knew she had called the man by his name in them, but she could never remember it after she woke up, nor what he called her. The harder she thought about it the closer the name got to the end of her tongue. She was centimetres away from remembering the name of the man when he flicked his wrist and the window in front of her exploded.

Everyone else screamed and ducked, but Katie didn't move, her eyes trained on the vampire. Up until that moment she had convinced herself that he was a figment of her imagination. When he disappeared Katie remembered that Rose didn't have a daylight ring and she snapped into action. She grabbed Rose's jacket off of the back of the chair and covered her with it as she pulled her up from the floor. Damon helped get her out of the place and into the parking garage, out of the sun.

Deciding they weren't moving fast enough Damon scooped Rose up and carried her to the car. Katie slid the door of the van open and Damon laid her down inside. "You're gonna be okay." Damon told Rose who was crying out in pain, her skin blistered from the sun.

"I know I just-" she started.

Damon cut her off. "Who was behind this?" he asked harshly.

"I don't know. Where's Slater?" she asked.

"Iowa by now. Who the hell knows?" Damon popped off.

"He's not behind this. He a good guy. He wouldn't betray me." Rose pleaded.

"Then who did it?" Damon asked with a sneer.

"It's Klaus. Don't you understand?" Rose cried now from fear instead of pain. Her skin completely healed now.

While they talked Katie moved to stand behind Damon looking like she was in shock. After Damon shut the car door he turned to see her standing there with shards of glass stuck in her face and neck. "Katie." He sighed pulling her out of her daze and she realized then that her face was hurting a little and felt of it realizing it was glass from the window. "Hold still." He pulled the glass out, tossed it to the side. "You okay?" he asked as he cupped her cheek in his hand.

"Yeah." She nodded and looked into his eyes. "I'm fine." She took his hand off her face and headed to the front passenger side of the car. "Let's just get out of here before whoever that was catches us."

* * *

That night Katie sat in the armchair in the library with a glass of bourbon in her hand while Damon stared into the fire with the decanter in his. "I'm sorry about today." Rose said as she walked into the room. "I didn't know that was going to happen."

"I believe you." Damon replied not turning around.

"I wish we could save Elena. I know you guys want to." She said as she walked further into the room.

As they talked Katie blocked them out still thinking about who she saw and why his name was on the edge of her tongue but she couldn't remember it. She closed her eyes playing the dream she'd had while she slept in Damon's car over and over in her head focusing on the part where she moaned the man's name. After replaying it a few times she heard his name in her head, "Elijah." She whispered catching Damon's attention.

"What?" he asked, but she didn't answer. "What's up with you? You haven't said a word since we got in the car." She still didn't answer him too shocked by what she had just realized. "Katie!" Damon yelled as he snapped his fingers in her face making her finally look up at him to see a questioning look on his face and she looked over to see Rose frowning at her.

"I know who exploded the coffee shop." She said then downed the rest of her bourbon in her glass and stood up.

"What?" Rose asked stepping into her line of view. "Who was it?"

"Elijah." Katie answered, looking between Damon and Rose.

"But I killed Elijah." Damon argued with his brows drawn together in a frown.

"Apparently you didn't." Katie argued back.

"How do you know it was Elijah? You've never even seen him." Damon asked with a frown.

"Light brown hair that stops at his ears." Katie said motioning the length of his hair with her hand above her ear. "Dimpled chin, kind of naturally smiling eyes…light beauty mark to the left of his nose." Katie described him. "He was wearing a suit and tie and he tossed a hand full of coins into the window."

"How does she know Elijah?" Rose asked Damon with wide eyes.

"I don't know." Damon answered her clearly confused then looked at Katie. "How _do_ you know him?"

"I don't." she answered earning her an aggravated look from Damon. "Not really…it's hard to explain." She said with a confused, rapid blink and a shake of her head.

"Well can you try?" Rose asked her getting just as aggravated as Damon.

Katie looked at Damon. "He's been in my dreams every night since I turned." She admitted making Damon blink at her like she was stupid. "I didn't know his name or who he was. I really don't even know who _I_ am in these dreams. I look like me but I'm not me. It's like I'm seeing someone else's life from a long time ago through their eyes."

Damon grabbed her shoulders and looked into her eyes, "You're not making any sense."

"You think I don't know I sound crazy right now?" she asked as she started pacing. "Up until you drug me back home it was the same dream every night. He and whoever I am in these dreams start making out and some blond headed vampire guy comes in, kills my son then rips my head off." They watched her pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace as she spouted out everything. "But when I fell asleep in your car the dream was different." She stopped talking not wanting to admit that she and Elijah were doing the dirty.

"The dream that had you moaning in your sleep?" Damon asked with a very displeased and grossed out look on his face.

"I called him by his name in that dream, but when I woke up I couldn't remember it." she told him and noticed Rose staring at her with a blank stare.

"You said you didn't know who it was." Damon remembered. "I thought you just didn't want to admit who you were sleeping with."

"Then today, at the coffee shop, before I saw him I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach and this weird ache in my chest like…like I was seeing someone I loved for the first time in a really long time." She explained.

"I don't get it. How can you be having dreams about him when you've ever met him?" Damon asked and he opened his mouth to keep talking but Rose interrupted.

"Reincarnation." Both Katie and Damon looked at her like she was crazy.

"It's rare and I've never seen it before, but I've been told it's real." She said as she walked over and sat down on the arm of the chair Katie had been sitting in earlier.

"Like…I'm someone else born again?" Katie asked with a blink at Rose.

"Nine times out of ten that someone else is an ancestor." she answered

"So my ancestor's sole was…put in my body when I was born?" Katie answered.

"Not really. It's hard to explain and I don't know everything about it. I only know what I was told." She said as she poured herself a glass of amber liquid. "You are your ancestor. These dreams you're having are things that happened to you in your past life." She stared explaining to the best of her ability. "Most of the time reincarnated people have no memories of their past life, but in special cases they remember how they died or other random things." Rose's phone started ringing and she answered it. "Hello?" Katie could hear Slater on the other end of the phone. "Are you okay?" Slater answered but Katie was only half paying attention to them. "No, I'm sorry to involve you."

Katie tuned them out as her thoughts turned to Elijah and what Rose had told her. If it really was memories of her past life then it meant that she really was whoever she had been seeing herself as in her dreams. She wasn't seeing someone else's life she was seeing her own…previous, life. "Katie?" Damon asked once again pulling her from her thoughts. "Did you hear any of that?"

"No, sorry. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around everything." She said as she looked between Rose and Damon. "What's up?"

"Slater found a way to keep the curse from being broken and hopefully keep Elena alive." Damon told her. "All we need to do is get the moonstone out of the tomb."

"Awesome." Katie sighed.

"Why don't you say that like you mean it?" Damon asked sarcastically.

"I do mean it, Damon. I am happy that we are going to save Elena and possibly piss off a big bad original vamp in the process. But we haven't even covered the fact that the original that you supposedly killed is alive and tried to kill us and I feel drawn to him because he and my past self were in love." She ranted. "So excuse the hell out of me for being distracted and not as enthusiastic as _you_ want me to be." She walked past the table behind the couch and grabbed two decanters full of bourbon on her way out of the library.

Damon started to go after her, but Rose stopped him. "Give her some space." Damon glared at Rose. "You know for two people who aren't together you sure do act like it."

"Shut up." Damon told her making her laugh as he swiped a couple decanters of his own and disappeared into his room.

* * *

It was the middle of the night when Katie stumbled into Damon's room and fell onto his bed. "You're drunk." Damon said making her look up to see his bathroom light on as he stumbled out with his shirt and pants unbuttoned, a decanter in his hand.

"Either you are too or I'm so drunk that my brain is making me think you're stumbling." She replied as she sat up, making sure not to spill what was left on the bed.

"Oh I am _way_ past drunk." He said as she stumbled over and crawled onto the bed, laying beside her where she sat in the middle of his big bed.

"I'm sorry I flipped out on you." she slurred, staring over at his muscular stomach that was partially covered by his shirt.

"I know you are." He said as he reached over and clumsily rubbed her thigh. "I'm not mad." he grunted as he sat up beside her.

"I really am happy that you found a way to save Elena. I'm just scared of the repercussions." She told him then took a drink from the decanter and Damon couldn't help but stare at her alcohol slicked lips. "I've been scared and overwhelmed since I turned and I'm tired of it. I don't want to worry. I don't want to think. I don't want to drink fucking blood bags just to keep my sanity…" She paused to take a drink then stretched over to the edge of the bed and set the bottle on the floor. Damon took in the good view of her butt, sticking out from the bottoms of her cheer shorts as she did. "All I want to do is turn my mind off." Katie said as she pushed herself back up facing Damon with her legs tucked to the side. She looked him in his eyes. "Even if it's just for a second…I just want peace."

"I think I know how to help." Damon took a final drink then leaned over and put his bottle on the bedside table. As soon as he turned back around she caught his lips with hers. He instantly wrapped his arm around her back, jerked her into his lap and she wrapped her legs around him like her life depended on it.

He leaned back, lying down so that she was on top on him and she sat up, staring into his eyes as she ran her hand down his chest to his pants. She broke eye contact to finish unzipping them then watched her hands slide up his stomach to his chest, then leaned down and attacked him with kisses.

He grabbed her hand and she pinned it down to the bed beside his head and their free hands roamed each other's body. Eventually she let go of his hand and sat back up. She laughed when he grabbed the hem of her tank top and ripped it open, pushing it down her arms as she leaned back down and started kissing his neck pulling a moan from him that gave her chills.

She started trailing kisses down his chest to his stomach, sliding her body down his as she did until she kissed the trail of hair that disappeared into his jeans and she sat between his legs. He laughed when she grabbed the waist band of his jeans and pulled them off of him in one swift movement, something she had tried to do in the past but wasn't strong enough.

Katie held eye contact with him as she placed a kiss to his bare hip causing him to grunt and toss his head back into the pillow. She kissed her way up his body, sliding her hands up his sides as she did, until she got to his neck.

With a whoosh Damon rolled them over and attacked her neck. "God...Damon, I need you." She begged as she kissed his arm, her fingertips digging into his shoulder blades. With every intention of dragging this out as long as he could he started kissing down her body at a painfully slow rate taking the time to slide his hands under her back and pop open the clasp of her bra and pull it off of her. He paid special attention to each of her breasts making her moan and arch her back as she closed her eyes and gripped the sheets. "Please." She said with an ecstasy filled sigh when he continued kissing down her stomach and hooked his fingers into the waist band of her shorts and panties.

"I love to hear you beg for me." He said in a heavy breath as he pulled her shorts down and as soon as they were off she wrapped her legs around him and flipped them over. Not letting her win he rolled her back over and pined her hands to the bed as he kissed her neck. "Beg."

"Damon…please." She moaned and tried to pull him into her with her legs that were still wrapped around him.

But he didn't budge. "Please what?" he asked looking into her alcohol glazed, lust filled eyes, his just as glazed.

He let her take her hand from his place it on his cheek running her thumb over his lips. "Make love to me." Her whispered words dissolved what little restraint he had left and he finally sank himself into her pulling a pleasured "Ah!" from both of them.

Just his heavy breathing and small grunts as he rocked into her was enough to push her over the edge but then he said, "Moan for me, baby." and she lost it, letting out the sound that he wanted to hear and it pushed him tumbling over the edge after her.

He relaxed, resting his head on her shoulder with a satisfied sigh. "We're gonna-" he started.

"Shush." Katie kissed him to shut him up. "No talking. Only peace."

Damon laughed quietly as he rolled off her and she tucked herself into his side with her head resting on his shoulder, her leg tossed over his and her hand on his chest. After a few minutes when he thought she was asleep he brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. "I love you."

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him. "I love you too."


	19. Chapter 19

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 19**

Katie's sat straight up in bed, breathing hard as she pressed her hand to her neck. The image of getting her head ripped from her body all too fresh in her head. "Hey." Damon grunted as he sat up with a groan and slid his hand over her naked shoulders and back. "Come back to bed." His sleepy voice caused her to look over at him as the images from the night before flooded her head and she got out of bed faster than she meant to.

"I shouldn't be in here." She started picking up her clothes only to find her tank top ripped down the middle. "Really, did you have to rip my shirt?" she asked holding it up for him to see.

He smirked at the drunken memory. "Pretty sure you liked it when I did that."

She rolled her eyes and tossed it aside. "For future reference, don't destroy my clothes." She said as she put on her panties. "Drunk, lust driven me and sober, somewhat clear headed me apparently have two different ideas of what we like." She pulled on her shorts and headed to his dresser to grab a shirt.

"For future reference?" he asked with a hopeful voice as he got out of bed and walked over to her, grabbing her hips and pulling her into him.

She turned in his arms and walked out of his grasp. "Yes, future reference." She said as she scooped up his boxers, threw them at him then started putting her bra on. "Obviously I'm going to break up with Tyler, especially after last night." She pulled the shirt over her head and stuck her arms through the baggy sleeves. "I can't believe I cheated on him." Damon watched her pull the shirt down over her slim torso with a smile on his face. "I'm pretty sure my moral compass got chunked out the window as soon as I turned. I used to-"

Damon put his hand over her mouth to shut her up with a smile still on his face. "That moral compass of yours that I love so much is still intact." He took his hand off of her mouth and moved his hands to rest on her hips.

"Then why do I feel like such a horrible person?" she asked, starting to calm down a little.

"Because of that compass. If you didn't have it you wouldn't be feeling guilty right now." He told her then cupped her cheek in his hand. "You got drunk and you made a mistake. It happens."

Katie sighed and rested her head on his chest. After a few second she looked back up at him. "You're not going to say anything about the fact that I just said that I'm going to break up with Tyler?"

"Nope." He told her with a small smile that grew into a full on bright smile that showed off his smile lines and made Katie smile too.

She shook her head at him and walked over to look at his phone on the bed side table. "Okay, I need to go get dressed." She put his phone down and started to her room.

"No." he pouted as he rushed up behind her and grabbed her sides, holding her to him before she could leave his room.

"I have to go back to school at some point. There's no use in putting it off." She replied as she took his hands off of her and opened the door revealing Stefan with his hand raised to knock on it.

"Katie." He said with a confused and curious look on his face.

"Um…Hi?" the awkwardness of Stefan finding her coming out of Damon's room wearing Damon's shirt caused her greeting to come out as a question. "It's exactly what it looks like, please don't tell Elena and I've got school to get to." She said in a rush as she walked around him leaving Damon behind to deal with his brother's backlash.

"Damon." She heard Stefan's warning voice.

"I don't have to explain myself to you little brother." Damon said in a condescending tone.

"We need to go talk to Katherine." Stefan told Damon and Katie stopped eavesdropping.

After showering off the shame of the night before she dressed in a pair of light wash jeans, a white wife beater shirt with a pink, white and orange plaid button up over it that she buttoned half way and a pair of ankle boots with a slight heel. Her hair was almost dry by the time she finished getting dressed so she threw it up into a messy ponytail and headed down stairs.

"Do you want me to drive you to school?" Damon asked when she walked into the kitchen with a blood bag in her hand.

"And risk Tyler seeing me with you before he even knows that I'm back in town?" she asked rhetorically. "I'm good thanks."

"Why does it matter if you're just going to break up with him anyway?" Damon asked as he walked over and stole a sip of the blood that she was drinking straight from the bag to save time.

"Because I still care about him, Damon, and I want to let him down at gently as possible." She said as she pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time.

He noticed that she still hadn't changed her background picture. "Then you might not want to let him see your phone." She just rolled her eyes, downed the blood bag and headed for the door. "Leaving a little early aren't you?" he asked following her to the door.

"I have to stop by my house and grab my school bag then compel my teachers before classes start." She replied as she pulled the front door open.

"You're going to your house?" he asked with a frown knowing how hard it was going to be for her to return to the scene of the crime.

"Yes." She sighed as she walked over to her car and tossed her duffle bag of dirty clothes into the passenger seat. "And I'm going by myself." She turned to face him and he opened his mouth to protest but she placed her finger of his lips. "I need to do this alone." He frowned and looked back and forth between her green eyes. "I'll be fine. I promise now go help Stefan figure out how to get the moonstone from Katherine." She took her finger off of his lips and got in her car.

* * *

She stood on the porch of her house, staring at the door as if her grandfather was standing on the other side of it, pissed at her for sneaking out again. "No one's home!" the woman across the street yelled making Katie turn around to see the nosy neighbor lady headed her way, her yappy little tea cup poodle strolling beside her on a hot pink leash.

"I know Mrs. Ratcliffe, it's me." Katie inwardly groaned as she met the woman on the sidewalk. This woman had caused her to get in trouble with her grandpa on several occasions. She was the one who told her grandfather about Damon sneaking into her bedroom window.

"Katie, sweetie, where has your handsome grandfather been? I haven't seen him in weeks." The woman asked with a too sweet smile that made Katie want to punch her.

Instead she smiled back just as sweetly and said, "Oh, nowhere, just hanging around at the bottom of a lake while fish feed on his body."

"W-what?" the woman stuttered, a horrified look on her old face.

Katie busted out laughing then looked into the woman's eyes. "Forget what I said about him behind at the bottom of a lake, you know he retired and bought a motorcycle. You saw him drive away on it during the night after he shipped me off to my long lost aunt's house. However, I'm back because I'm eighteen and he can't make me do anything anymore and from now on you're going to keep your nose out of my business." The woman blinked as the compulsion sank in and she gave Katie a smile. "Have a good day Mrs. Ratcliffe." She told the woman with a wave over her shoulder as she headed to the house, unlocked the door and went inside.

The smile faded from her face as her eyes landed on the broken glass from the tv that was scattered over the floor of the living room. She wanted to clean it up, but she knew she didn't have time. So she went upstairs, tossed her duffle bag onto her bed, grabbed her school bag then headed back to her car.

* * *

She was leaving her pre-calculus class when she literally bumped into Tyler. "Watch where you're g-" he started then realized it was her that he'd ran into. "Hey, when did you get back?" he asked with a confused but somewhat happy look. "Did you get contacts?"

"Yeah." She answered with a scratch at her nose forgetting that she no longer wore glasses. "I got in late last night." She lied smoothly. "Sorry I didn't call, there was no cell reception where my aunt lives."

"No biggie, I'm just glad you're back." he said as he grabbed her hand and leaned in and kissed her. She forced herself to kiss him back, but he could tell something was off. "What's wrong?" he asked with a frown.

"Nothing." Katie lied again and made herself smile. "Look I still have a lot of make up work to get before class. Can we talk after school?" she asked as she let go of his hand.

"Yeah, sure." he said with a confused nod.

"Okay, see you later." She said then headed to the last teacher she needed to talk to, Alaric's. The other teachers had all been compelled to give her varying grades from 90-100, but Alaric knew what she was and couldn't be compelled.

She knocked on the open door of the classroom making him look up from the desk he was standing behind to see her standing in his doorway. "Katie." He said unenthusiastically. She walked inside and stood in front of his desk. "I was wondering when you would be coming back." he said as he walked over and shut the door. He gave her a disappointed look as he walked back over to her. "Caroline was back after a week, what kept you out so long?" Katie realized then that Damon and Stefan didn't tell him everything.

"I don't really want to answer that question." Katie replied as she pushed the strap of her bag further up on her shoulder.

"Do I have to worry about my favorite student eating her classmates?" he asked making her crack a small smile.

"I was told teachers didn't have favorite students." She popped off.

"Whoever told you that is full of shit. You're interested in your work, you do it on time, get good grades and you don't try to kiss my ass to get better grades. You also stood up to Mayor douche bag." He said with a roll of his eyes then gave her a look that old her to be serious. "Now answer the question."

"No, I'm not going to eat anybody." She answered and he gave her a look that suggested he didn't believe her. "Damon and I-"

"Please don't ever start a sentence with the words Damon and I." he interrupted her.

She just rolled her eyes. "We agreed that if I started to feel too on edge or murderous that I would give him a signal and he would get me away from people. So how about if I get too overwhelmed I'll ask to go to the bathroom to get away and get myself together or just leave if I can't handle it."

"I don't know…" he drawled skeptically.

"Your class if my first one of the day. So I'll know if I can't handle this one I won't be able to handle the others and I'll unfortunately skip school again." She reasoned.

He took in a deep breath and crossed his arms over his chest like he didn't want to agree with her. "Okay."

"Good, now back to the main reason I came here." She said happy to have the hard part out of the way. "What can I do to make up what I missed?"

He stared at her for a moment as he thought about it. "Just be here on time everyday, write me a paper on…I don't care, something interesting, and I'll forge some grades like you compelled you other teachers to."

"Really?" she asked with a surprised smile.

"Really." He said with a tight smile of his own. "Someone will get suspicious if the other teachers have individual grades for you and I have one make up assignment."

Katie's smile got bigger. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now get out of here." He told her with a jerk of his head to the door.

She looked at her watch as she walked out of history class to see she had twenty minutes to catch up with Bonnie and Caroline who she hadn't seen or spoken to since she got back. She found them outside in their usual before school hang out spot under a tree out front. "Hey." Katie greeted them as she walked up.

"Hey, you're back." Bonnie said with a smile, surprising Katie. "How are you?"

"Good, dealing, adjusting." Katie said with a sway of her head. "Which is a lot easier with this." She held up her hand that she wore her ring on. "Thank you, so much, Bonnie."

Bonnie gave her a small but genuine smile. "You're welcome."

"I'm guessing Stefan and Damon filled you in about Tyler?" Caroline asked and Katie nodded. "Did Stefan tell you that I told him what I am?" she asked reluctantly.

"No. Why would you do that?" Katie asked with wide eyes.

"Because he figured it out." She answered looking ashamed. "I didn't tell him about you. He thinks I'm the only one in town." Katie breathed out a sigh of relief. "He said he ran into you earlier. He asked me if I knew you were back and said you were acting weird. What's up?"

"I'm…going to break up with him after school." Katie answered reluctantly with a scratch at the back of her neck.

"What, why?" Bonnie asked. "You two are so cute together."

"I…just…" Katie couldn't figure out how to finish the sentence.

"I get it." Caroline spoke up. "I broke up with Matt because I couldn't handle keeping secrets from him. You and Tyler have it worse…you're both keeping secrets." Caroline hit the nail on the head.

"What she said." Katie pointed at Caroline to answer Bonnie's question.

"Our relationships were doomed from the moment Katherine suffocated us." Caroline said with a flick of her brows and a roll of her eyes.

"She suffocated you?" Katie asked.

"Mmhmm, with a pillow." Caroline answered as the bell rang. "That's not how she killed you?" she asked as the three of them started walking to class.

"No, she snapped my neck." Katie answered.

"Well that was harsh." Caroline replied then sped up, headed to a different class than Bonnie and Katie. "See you guy later." She waved over her shoulder as she left them behind.

"I've been a part of some weird conversations, but I think that one takes the cake." Bonnie said with a freaked smile as they walked into the almost empty history class making them both laugh as they took their seats.

* * *

After school Tyler met Katie at her car, a pissed off look on his face as he walked over to where she stood with her door open. "Are you going to break up with me?" he asked stopping a few feet away from her.

"What?" Katie asked shocked that he somehow knew.

"Tiki told he she over heard you telling Caroline and Bonnie that you were going to break up with me after school." He told her with flared nostrils.

"I hate her." Katie sighed as she rested her head on her arm that rested on the door.

"Is it true?" he asked not giving up on getting an answer.

Katie picked her head up and looked at him, fighting hard to keep her emotions at bay. "I know at the hospital after the…" she paused and took a deep breath, "the ultrasound that I said we were good, but…we're not."

"Do you blame me?" he asked with an accusatory look.

"No." she shook her head and he looked at her like he didn't believe her. "No I don't, Tyler. I don't blame any one."

"Then what's the problem?" he asked with a glare. "We lost a baby that neither of us needed. Big deal, so what?"

Katie hugged herself and started banging the toe of her shoe down into the pavement of the parking lot. "I needed it, Tyler." Her voice cracked as a tear slipped down her cheek. "I didn't want to be a teenage mom, no one does, but that baby would have been the only person on this planet to love me unconditionally no matter what I did or mistakes I made." All anger fell from his face. "And every time I think about being with you all I can feel is the pain of what I lost, what _we_…lost." He just stared at her with wide eyes of realization. "So I'm sorry, but yes…it's true."

Tyler watched in shock as she got in her car and drove off.

* * *

She managed to hold herself together until she got into her house, then she pressed her back against the door and let it all come out as she slid down it. Eventually, after about an hour of sitting there wallowing in self pity, the putrid smell of unwashed dishes that had been sitting in a hot house made its way into her senses and she pulled herself up from the floor. With a new goal to take her mind off of things she turned on the big stereo in the living room and started cleaning the house.

In four hours time not a speck of dust was left in the house, the dishes were washed and put away and all the clothes had been washed, folded and put away. She was packing a bag to bring to the boarding house, thinking about packing up her grandfathers things when she remembered that when her grandfather moved in he didn't touch the things in the basement. So she finished packing her bag then headed down to the basement.

Boxes upon boxes were stacked all the way up to the low ceiling of the dark room. She made her way through the maze until she reached the light in the middle of the ceiling and pulled the string illuminating the dusty space. She new that the version of her in her dreams had a thick Irish accent so she started looking for boxes of her Irish father's family photo albums or any kind of family history. Thankfully they were all labeled and after forty five minutes of wiping dust off of cardboard she finally found one labeled "Finnegan Family Photos and Such." She un-stacked the boxes, took it out and carried it up to the living room.

She was half way through the box of photo books and lose photos when she came across a folder with really old sketches of people inside. She was going through them when she saw herself. The woman from her dreams was drawn beautifully in black and white along side the little boy from her dreams and a man she had never seen before. She flipped it over to see if it said who the people were to find a date along with the names. "1835, Ronan Finnegan with wife Hannah Easton-Finnegan and son Jonah Finnegan." She read aloud then turned the paper back over staring at the woman's face that was, but wasn't her own.

She jumped when the front door opened and Damon walked in. "What are you doing?" he asked looking around at the pictures scattered all over the coffee table and sofa.

"Research." She answered as she put the old drawing on the end table and started picking up her mess.

"That doesn't sound fun." He said as he started helping her.

"There's nothing fun about my life anymore." She sighed not looking at him, but the things she was putting back into the box.

"Tell me about it." he said with a grunt as he moved things off of the couch, stuck them in the box then sat down kicking his feet up on the table.

"Hey, watch it. That's my ancestors you're putting your dirty shoes all over." She complained as she slapped his feet for him to move them.

"Your ancestors?" he asked curiously as he sat up and watched her put the last of the pictures in the box. He reached in and picked up a sepia picture of a woman in a Victorian style dress with her boobs pushed up way too high by a corset. "She's hot."

"Really, those big boobs doin' it for ya?" she asked with a glare across her shoulder at him.

"Hey, seems like they run in the family." He told her with a look down at her chest that caused her to punch him. "Ouch, that actually kind of hurt." He scolded her as he rubbed his arm.

She took the picture from him and tossed it in the box before she closed it. "You think she's hot, tell me what you think about," she reached over him and grabbed the drawing off of the end table, "her." she handed it to him.

"Whoa, that's not creepy at all." He said with a look at her with creased brows and wide eyes. "Who is this?"

"Hannah Easton-Finnegan." Katie answered. "Past life me." She said as she picked up the box and headed to the basement. "Rose was right about the past life me being one of my ancestors."

"So you really buy in to all this reincarnation crap?" He asked as she put the box near where she found it.

"I don't have any other explanation for that picture or the fact that I've never seen Hannah and Elijah before yet somehow I see them in my dreams every night." She said as she headed to the stairs then into the living room.

"Should I be jealous of Elijah?" He asked a little freaked.

"No. Why would you?" She asked as she grabbed her duffle bag and threw the strap over her shoulder.

"Because you dream about him every night." He answered as if it was the obvious one.

"You have nothing to worry about. I promise." She grabbed the picture and headed for the door. "How did you know I was here?" Katie asked changing the subject.

"I saw the light on when I was leaving Elena's." He answered.

"What were you doing at Elena's?" She asked curiously.

"It's a long story." He told her as he opened the door and jerked his head at it telling her to go first. "I'll fill you in when we get home." He told her as they walked out and to their cars.

* * *

Katie sat on the couch in the boarding house living room with her legs tucked up beside her. "So because the heartless bitch told Elena that Klaus will kill everyone she loves if we keep him from breaking the curse, Elena tried to turn herself over to him?" She asked and Damon hummed a positive answer from where he stood in front of the fireplace with a glass of bourbon in his hand. "And while you were off rescuing her, Jeremy got the moonstone out of the tomb, but Katherine got Jeremy and Stefan got stuck inside the tomb getting Jeremy out."

"Yyyep." He popped the p at the end of the word.

"Is it just me or are the Gilberts incredibly stupid?" Katie asked.

"It's not just you." He answered then turned from the fireplace to look at her. "So how was your day?"

"Everything I have to say is going to sound like child's play compared to your day." She said with a sigh as she got up and took the empty glass from his hand.

"Tell me anyway." He said as she refilled his glass and poured her a drink of her own.

"I spent the morning compelling my teachers to forge me good grades." She started as she walked over and handed him his glass.

"What about Alaric?" He asked knowing he couldn't be compelled.

"He forged my grades, but assigned me a research project to make up for it." She explained then took a sip of her drink. "After that I caught up with Caroline and Bonnie and that went better than I thought it would. But after school I was confronted by Tyler who was pissed."

"Why was he pissed?" He asked then took a sip of his drink.

"Tiki, a senior that I'm on the cheer team with, overheard me telling the girls that I was going to break up with him after school." She explained.

"What a bitch!" Damon scoffed exaggeratedly making Katie smile a little.

"Yeah, so I basically told him that being with him after losing the baby was too painful and I couldn't be with him anymore. Which is true so it's not like I lied, but..." she downed her drink. Damon took the glass from her, cutting her off for the night.

"I know that was hard for you," he said as walked over to her and placed his hands on her hips, "but can I just say how ecstatic I am that you are free to be with me without feeling like shit about it?" He picked her up.

She laughed and wrapped her legs around him out of instinct. "I would prefer you show me." She told him with a smile and a flick of her brow.

He kissed her and walked forward, pressing her back against the wall next to the fireplace as he moved his hands to her jeans covered thighs, holding her legs around him. She gripped his neck with one hand while the other slid up into his hair as he kissed and nibbled on her neck.

"We're the only ones home, right?" she asked in a huff and Damon hummed a positive answer. "Good." She whooshed then over to the couch, straddling his hips as she tore open his black button up shirt and started kissing his chest, collarbones and neck.

When he'd had all he could take of teasing each other with strategically placed kisses he whooshed them over to lay in the ornate rug in front of the fire place.

* * *

They laid on the rug, covered with only a thin throw blanket. One of his hands played with her hair while the other absentmindedly rubbed her arm that laid on his chest. "So are we telling people about us now?" he asked quietly.

"Might as well. It's not like either of us can manage to keep our hands off each other." she answered with a look up at him. "Just…no PDA if Tyler's around, at least for a couple of weeks. I don't want to be inconsiderate."

"Okay." He told her quietly. "I know you're probably tired of me asking, but how are you on the whole 'I'm tired of being afraid' front?"

"Getting better." She answered as she pulled her phone out to see what time it was. "I'm still scared of the repercussions of keeping Elena from being sacrificed, and what this whole reincarnation thing means, but I think my whole getting-it-all-out-session with you last night really helped. Not that I'm happy about the way it happened or the timing." She said as she moved to straddle him not caring that she was nude in the middle of the living room. "And as horrible as this is going to sound, breaking up with Tyler felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest."

Damon just brushed her hair out of her face and sat up. "We're naked in the middle of the living room." he pointed out with a cheeky smile, changing the subject.

"Would you prefer us be naked elsewhere?" she asked with a look around the empty house.

"Your friends tend to let themselves in unannounced, so…" he said making Katie realize she really didn't want to be walked in on.

"Right. Then let's relocate." She stood up and held her hand out to him so he grabbed it and stood up, draping the throw blanket across her shoulders.

It didn't take long after their heads hit the pillows for them to fall asleep wrapped up in each other.

~*Dreaming*~

She kneeled in the forest gathering kindling. The evening sun bounced off her copper curls making it look as if flames were engulfing her head. Her 8 year old son Jonah stood at her side, weakly holding onto her shoulder.

A twig snapped close by causing her to look up, her green eyes wide with fear. Wolves had attacked their cabin the night before, killing her sister and injuring her son. However instead of a wolf her fearful gaze landed on a handsome man with kind hazel eyes. "Hello." He told her as he held his hands where she could see them. "Please, do not be afraid of me."

Her gaze turned skeptical as she slowly stood and pushed her son protectively behind her back.

"Do you speak English?"

"Yes." she replied meekly, keeping a hand on the sweaty, pail, blond headed boy behind her.

"Your boy, he is hurt." She said nothing but gave him a nod. "I need sustenance and shelter. If you provide, I will heal your boy."

"I don't have much." she replied. Her Irish accent thick in her words.

"If you help me," she took in how weak he looked. "I'll help your son and get you more food." He told her taking a step closer to her, making her take a step back.

"Help my son first." She told him sternly.

"If you would kindly show me to your home I will heal him there." He told her in his naturally softer spoken voice.

She nodded then motioned to him. "Your name?"

"Elijah." He told her with a polite nod and small smile.

"I'm Hannah this is Jonah." She placed her hand on her sons back. "Come." She jerked her head for him to follow her. She led him to a small two room cabin and opened the wooden door for the boy and went inside then held the door open for him. When he didn't come in she spoke again, "Please, come inside."

Only then did he come inside and let her shut the door behind him. "Jonah, do you speak English?" Elijah asked and the ill boy who sat in a wooden chair at a small dining table with a very infected bite on his forearm nodded, sweat pouring down his forehead. "What I am going to ask of you will be undesirable, but I need you to do as I say. Understand?" Elijah asked as he sat down across from him.

"Yes, sir." Jonah answered weakly.

"Do you have a cup?" Elijah asked turning to Hannah. She nodded and handed him a metal cup. They watched as Elijah cut his wrist, blood dripped slowly into the cup, filling it a fourth of the way before the cut healed. "Drink." He pushed the cup across the table to the child. Jonah looked to his mother with wide eyes. Elijah followed his gaze to Hannah. "You have my word, it will heal him."

Knowing that they had nothing to loose, Hannah nodded to her son. "Do as he says, Jonah." The boy took the cup and gulped it down with a disgusted expression. They all watched as the nasty, infected bite on his arm slowly healed until it was gone completely. "What kind of sorcery is this?" Hannah asked, backing up until her hips hit the unlit wood burning stove behind her.

Elijah just looked Jonah in the eyes. "Go to the room and rest." Jonah nodded and went to the only other room in the cabin and shut the door behind him. Only then did Elijah look to the wide eyed Hannah. "I was told by a woman in the nearby training post that you are kind and accepting of those who are different."

"Fiona sent you?" She asked, shocked that her friend, a witch, had sent this man her way. "You're a witch?"

"No. I am a vampire." He corrected her politely.

"I don't know what that is." She told him not moving from where she stood.

"It means I am strong, fast, and I can control the minds of humans." He told her. "But all of that is weakened if I don't have sustenance." Hannah grabbed a wooden bowl, set it on the table and took off the white cloth that covered it, revealing three small biscuits. "food is not the substance I require."

"Then what do you require?" She asked confused yet intrigued by him.

"Your blood." He answered as be covered the biscuits back up.

"My blood?" She asked with raised brows.

He saw no judgment in her eyes, just intrigue and a touch of fear. "You may cut yourself and fill a cup, but I would prefer to bite you as it lowers your risk of infection."

"You want to bite me?" She finally walked over and sat down across the table from him. "Fiona didn't send you here to pull my leg did she?"

"I assure you this is no joke." He told her.

Hannah thought about the deal they had made. She was low on food and money and hadn't seen a deer in weeks. Elijah had said he would get them food if she helped him and he had already healed Jonah. She had no reason to not believe him. So realizing her only options were to help this man and trust that he would get them food or die of starvation she stood up and walked around the table. "I trust you will not take what you need then leave us to starve?" She asked with raised brows.

"I am a man of my word." Somehow she could tell he was telling the truth. So she held her wrist out to him. "This is going to hurt." He warned her as the whites of his eyes turned red and veins protruded from the skin around his eyes. "My apologies." He sank his teeth into her wrist causing her to wince from the pain and squeeze her eyes shut.

~*End Of Dream*~

She woke with a sharp breath only to realize that she wasn't in the cabin anymore, but in bed with Damon. With a sigh she let her head fall back onto the pillow. This dream was different than all the others and it felt different. Mostly because she remembered every detail about this one now that she was awake and the funny feeling was back in her stomach. Absentmindedly she placed her hand over her flat stomach. "You okay over there?" Damon asked making her jump.

"Yeah." She answered quietly as she turned onto her side and propped her head up with her hand. "Just had a different dream is all."

"Ugh," he groaned really not liking her dreams. "It wasn't another dirty one was it?"

"You're so jealous." She shook her head with a smile. "No. It was about the first time Elijah and I met. Apparently I had a friend who was a witch and she sent him to me for help."

"Why kind of help?" he asked skeptically, like he wanted to know, but didn't at the same time.

"He needed blood. Fiona, the witch friend of mine, knew I had an open mind and sent him to me." She explained.

"And did you give him your blood?" he asked remembering how intimate it was when he would feed on her.

"My son had a very bad infection from a wolf bite so Elijah and I made a deal. If he saved my son I would give him sustenance. He specifically never said he needed food. I get the feeling he's the kind of man who makes sure his deals and promises have no loopholes. I saw no other options so yes, I did. He bit my wrist and I woke up."

"None of that surprises me." He said with a roll if his eyes. "But I'm not going to lie, that sounds a lot like you and me. You and Elijah made a deal that benefited your son in exchange for blood. You and me made a deal that benefited your friend, in exchange for blood. Sound similar?"

"I need to stop telling you my dreams." She turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.

"No, I want you to." He turned onto his side and started absentmindedly trailing his fingertips over her body sending tingles through her skin wherever he touched.

"Why?" she asked sliding her hand over his lightly freckled shoulder and arm.

"Because…no secrets, no lies, remember?" he asked and she rolled over, pushing him onto his back as she straddled him. "Besides, I want to know everything I can about my enemy." He placed his hand on her thighs, rubbing them with his thumbs. She took a deep breath and looked at him like she wanted to tell him something but didn't know if she should. "What?"

"I have a theory about all of this Elijah crap I'm feeling." She told him as she stared at her hands that roamed his chest. "When I had that dream in the car, it was the first time I'd had a dream that didn't end with me getting my head ripped off. I was close to Elijah when that happened because he was in that house with Elena, Rose and Trevor. Then at the coffee shop I could literally feel that he was near me."

He grabbed her hands off of his chest to get her attention. "What are you getting at?"

She placed his hand on her sides. "I can tell when he's near, that can be useful. I just don't know exactly how close he has to be before I feel something."

"You had a new dream this morning." He pointed out and Katie nodded.

"And a slight odd feeling in the pit of my stomach." She added. "So I think he's at least in town." She fell down, placing her hand on each side of his head and kissed his nose. "And considering Elena has been doing everything she can to be sacrificed, I'd say that's some good information to have."

"You're right. It is good information to have." He told her then rolled them over. "Now shut up and kiss me." She slowly lifted her head and brushed her lips across his then started kissing his shoulder. "You're such a tease." He complained and squeezed her side making her squeal then bust out laughing

"No, no, no." she laughed, squirming under him as he continued to tickle her. "No fair, I haven't found your ticklish spot yet." He kept tickling her, loving the sound of her girlish laugh. "Damon, stop it."

He stopped his assault on her sides and looked into her eyes. "What are you gonna do if I don't?" With a whoosh she rolled them over letting the blood rush to her eyes as she pinned him down. "That doesn't scare me." He told her and she could practically see the lust cloud his eyes.

She leaned down and ran over fangs over the skin of his neck. "It wasn't supposed to." She whispered in his ear as she felt her fangs disappear.

He rolled them back over now pinning her down, "God I love you." he whispered before he started kissing her.

He had moved to kissing her chest when his phone chimed. "Ignore it." she urged but he pulled away and rolled over to grab it off of the bedside table.

"I can't. Stefan made me promise to protect the suicidal doppelganger. So I'm meeting with Bonnie and to figure out a way to keep her from doing anything stupid." he told her as he checked his messages. "Bonnie's here, we should probably get dressed."

"Ugh…if I have to." She complained as she rolled out of bed then stood up. "Um…my clothes are still in the living room…"

"Well then I'm pretty sure Bonnie knows we're together again. I told her we'd meet her in the living room." he told her as he grabbed a button up shirt out of his drawer and a pair of boxer shorts and tossed them to her.

"That's not exactly how I wanted my friends to find out about us." she said with an embarrassed smile as she pulled on his clothes while he too started getting dressed. "I'm going skip the save Elena from herself plan making if that's okay. I'm going to get my job at the grill back."

"Why?" he asked with a disapproving tone.

"Because unlike you my family wasn't rich. I have bills to pay and currently no income." She pointed out as she grabbed the doorknob.

"Don't you think you should stay here considering Elijah is most likely in town?" He asked as he walked over to her as he pulled a black t-shirt over his head.

"I can't put my life on hold because of him." She replied as she pulled the bedroom door open. "The more normal things I do the more normal I will feel."

"Okay, but if you get into trouble-"

"I'll call you." she interrupted him then headed to her room

A few minutes later she came down stairs to see that Damon had cleared the living room of their clothes and Bonnie and Jeremy sat in the living room talking with Damon about trapping Elena in her house. "Hey." Bonnie said when she saw her. "Damon said you're getting your job back at the grill?" She asked as Katie walked in with a black coffee tumbler of blood in her hand.

"Yep." She answered then took a drink.

"Just a little warning," Bonnie said as she stood up to talk to Katie face to face, "Caroline is meeting Tyler there later and she said he is_ very_ upset with you."

"Great." Katie sighed then pulled her car keys out of her pocket and put her cell phone in it. "Thanks for the warning. Let me know if you guys need help with suicide watch." She told them then headed to the door.

She was about to open it when she felt Damon behind her a second before she felt him grab her hand and pulled her back into him. She smiled and turned in his arms. He kissed her then stepped back and opened the door for her. "Have a good day."

She kissed him again and pressed the button on her keys to unlock her doors. "I love you too by the way."

* * *

She had compelled the manager to give her back her old job and she was working the bar when Caroline walked over to her. "Hey, how are you?" she asked in her always sweet voice.

"Good." Katie answered with a nod. "I'm also wishing people would stop asking me that." She told her light heartedly. "How's Tyler? I know the full moon's tonight."

"He's freaking out." She answered quietly. "We found Mason's journal and a recording he made of his first transformation. It was…_awful_. I mean you can't imagine the pain that Tyler is going to have to go through tonight."

"I wish there was something I could do." Katie thought out loud as she stared down at her hands that were fiddling with a rag, hating that Tyler was having to go though unimaginable pain.

"You could've been there for him, Katie." Caroline replied in an accusatory tone that made Katie frown up at her. "No one was stopping you from telling him the truth and being there for him. Matt doesn't know about the supernatural, I couldn't tell him. But you could've told Tyler." Katie felt the prickles of guilt stabbing into her chest.

"I thought you understood why I had to break up with him." Katie pointed out getting defensive.

"I've thought a lot about it and realized that it's because you both had secrets that it could've worked for you." Caroline explained. "Instead you threw him aside for Damon."

"Who told you?" Katie asked holding back tears.

"You just did." She answered then turned around and walked over to a table.

Not long after that Tyler walked in with a black duffle bag thrown over his shoulder. When his eyes found Katie he gave her his signature pissed off look making her turn her eyes down to the bar. Knowing she shouldn't she trained her ears on him and Caroline. "This girl mason knows stopped by the house." He told Caroline quietly. "She said he never made it back to Florida. My moms freaking out and she was on the phone with your mom when I left." Katie looked up at them meeting eyes with Caroline who probably guess that she's be listening. "We should probably get going." Tyler told her then cast one more mean glare at Katie before he left.

Katie pulled her phone out of her pocket and relayed what Tyler said to Damon. Not long after she texted him he showed up at the grill. "Here." Damon handed her a bag of tiny yellow flower petals.

"What's this?" she asked as she took it.

"Wolfsbane." He answered. "The vervain of werewolves." He answered as he leaned his forearms on the bar.

"So why are you giving it to me?" she asked as she stuck it in her front pocket.

"If the woman asking for mason shows up, slip it in her drink when I tell you to. Alaric and I will handle the rest." He told her and she looked over at Alaric who gave her a wave.

"Okay, will do." She said not liking that she was getting pulling into doing dirty work, but she couldn't avoid it forever. "Working here was never boring after you showed up." He just smiled and headed over to Alaric and she got back to work.

She was waiting on a customer when she saw a blond that she didn't recognize walk in and ask Matt if he knew Tyler. After she got her answer she went over to the bar and ordered a drink from the new bartender that seemed to be a lot less flaky than their past bartenders. So Katie didn't get to slip the wolfsbane into her first drink. When she was done waiting on the people who needed waiting on she headed back over to the bar and managed to discretely compel the bartender to get lost for an hour so she could take his place.

When she was almost finished with her first drink Alaric came over pretending to be drunk and ordered a drink for the woman so Katie could mix in the herb while Damon came over and distracted her. Eventually Alaric left Damon to his flirting and information fishing while Katie pretended to work while listening in on them. Just when she thought Damon had convinced Jules to drink the drink that Katie had mixed for her she smelled the wolfsbane and slammed the glass down. "You fool." Damon gave Katie and Alaric a look that said they'd lost. "You think you're clever, don't you?"

"What do you want with Mason Lockwood?" Damon asked now getting to the point as Katie moseyed over, pretending to wipe down the bar.

"He's my friend." Jules replied.

"Well, I'm sorry to inform you that you probably won't find him." Damon told her with a sneer.

"And why not?" Jules asked with an attitude.

"You should leave town." Damon told her.

She scoffed, "Are you threatening me on a full moon? How stupid are you?" Jules asked before Alaric came over.

"Damon, how 'bout that second round?" he asked trying to diffuse things.

"I think we're done here, Ric." Damon told him angrily as Jules stood up and Damon turned back to her. "You think I'm afraid of you?"

"No, I don't. That's your vampire arrogance. You should be." She told him getting in his face. "I sniffed you out the moment I entered this bar." She turned her eyes to Katie, "you too along with your pathetic wolfsbane." She then looked over her shoulder at Ric. "See, I've been at this a long time. And any other night of the month, the situation would be reversed, but tonight…is not the night to pick a fight with me." She grabbed her clutch off of the bar and looked Damon up and down. "You've been marked." She left the grill.

"You've been marked?" Katie asked with a look between Damon and Alaric. "I wonder if she knows how stupid that sounds."

"You stay here." Damon told her getting a raised browed salute from Katie as he stormed out with Alaric on his tail. Katie tuned her ears in on him as he did. "Where is she?" Damon asked as they walked out.

"Let it go, Damon. Don't be stupid." Alaric told him.

"What, I'm supposed to let her just get away?" he asked. "You've been marked. What the hell kind of wolf throw down crap is that anyway?" Damon ranted.

"Damon, look up. Just look up." Alaric practically yelled at him. "If this werewolf stuff is true, one bite and you're dead. One. Bite. Alright? Don't risk it. Just get Katie, go home, lock your doors and we'll deal with it in the morning."

"Yeah." She heard Damon answer so she went into the back, found her manager and compelled her to let her go for the night. She met Damon in the front. "You were listing to us weren't you?"

"Eavesdropping is easy to do without meaning to." She answered with a shrug as they walked outside.

* * *

They walked into the boarding house and locked the door behind them and were about to head to his room when he stopped making her stop and realize that some one was there. "You feelin' any weird vibes over there?" he asked her over his shoulder with wide eyes.

"I'm pretty sure it's not Elijah if that's what you're asking." Katie answered before they headed to the library where they found Rose sitting at the desk.

"You're back?" Katie asked with skeptical eyes.

"Didn't mean to just drop in, but Damon wouldn't answer his phone and I don't have anyone else's number." Rose defended herself.

"What do you want?" Damon asked as he leaned on the archway of the library entrance and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I wanted to apologize." Rose answered.

"Just admit it. You don't have anywhere else to go." Damon said making Katie give him a look that told him to be nice. The woman had been on the run for who knows how long, it wasn't her fault she never had the chance to settle down somewhere.

"I'm sorry about Elena." She told them as she walked over to them. "I wasn't thinking straight. I didn't know she had a death wish. But I called you. I tried to make it right, okay?" Damon looked like he was considering letting her stay. "I'm sorry, Damon." He just looked at her like he was still thinking. "And I…have no where else to go." She added with a small smile.

Damon didn't say anything so Katie spoke up. "Well, I don't have a say on if you can stay here, but if he doesn't let you I have place you can crash."

Rose was about to say something when they heard glass break in the living room and they ran there to see that a window had been broken. They could hear the growl of a wolf, but couldn't tell where it was coming from. Damon grabbed a sword off the wall and started walking around cautiously. Before either Katie or Damon could see it standing next to Damon about to attack him, Rose yelled his name and pushed him out of the way, getting attacked instead.

Katie sped over to the wolf that was biting Rose's neck and kicked it as hard as she could in the side sending it flying off of Rose to tumble across the floor before it sped out of the broken window. Damon and Katie both went to Rose's side as she sat up. "How bad is it?" Damon asked looking at the large gash on her shoulder.

"It hurts." Rose replied as she looked down at it then back to Rose.

"It's healing." Katie pointed out with a wide eyed look between the two of them.

"Oh my god. I thought a werewolf bite was fatal. I thought…." Rose started crying from both trauma and relief as Katie and Damon shared a relived look.

"It's alright." He soothed her as he hugged the crying Rose. "You're gonna be okay." Katie reached out and rubbed her back, not knowing what else to do.

When she stopped crying Katie convinced her that a shower to get all the wolf slobber off of her would make her feel better. While she did that, Katie and Damon waited for her on the couch in the library. "Was that Tyler or Jules?" Katie asked as she looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap.

"Pretty sure it was Jules." Damon answered then looked at Katie where she leaned on his side with his arm wrapped around her. "Why would Tyler come after us?"

"Because he's really pissed at me." Katie didn't look at him, but down at the drink in her hands.

"I don't like the guy, but I don't think he would purposely hurt you." he said looking down at her guilty face.

"You didn't see the way he looked at me at The Grill today." She said still not looking at him. "Will you do me a favor and call Caroline to see if Tyler got out?"

"She's your friend, why don't you do it?" he asked making her finally look at him.

"We kind of got into a disagreement about me breaking up with Tyler. I don't really feel like dealing with her at the moment." Katie answered so Damon pulled out his phone and called Caroline.

"It was Jules, not Tyler. He was locked up all night." He told her as he put his phone away. "So this wasn't your fault. It was mine." Rose walked into the library wearing a red silk robe. "I talked to Caroline. She said Tyler was all locked up." He told her as she sat down in the armchair.

"So… it was Jules. The other werewolf, the one who attacked you." she confirmed.

"Yeah." Damon said as he reached behind the couch and grabbed a decanter and an empty glass. "I'm sorry. I picked a fight with her." he handed the glass to her and poured her a drink. "She was coming after me."

"All's well that ends well." Rose said with a shrug then took a drink.

"So how's the bite, all heal up?" Katie asked curiously.

"Yeah." She said with a nod. "Seems that way."

"Rose, uh," Katie and Rose both looked at Damon, waiting for him to say whatever it is he was trying to so awkwardly say, "I'm happy that the legend was fake."

"Me too." Katie said as she stood up and threw back her drink. "Maybe they made it up to keep us away. Kind of like they did with the whole silver thing." She thought out loud as she walked around the couch and set her glass down.

"Maybe." Rose replied to Katie then looked at Damon. "You never told me if I could stay. Seems like you guys could use my help with this whole Elena madness."

Damon looked at Katie. "Don't look at me, your house your say." She told him as she walked around to stand between him and Rose at the end of the couch.

"You're welcome to stay." He told Rose and smiled at Katie.

"Welcome to the team." Katie told Rose as she set her hand on the shoulder that had been bitten and Rose flinched. "What's wrong?"

"That hurt." Rose looked at Katie, confused as she pulled down the side of her robe revealing her skin that was eroding away where she had been bitten. "Oh, no." Rose sighed as the three of them shared worried looks.

* * *

After doing what few things they could think of for Rose until morning, Damon and Katie headed to his room. He gave her a confused look when she stopped at his door. "What are you doing?" he asked walking back over to her.

"I'm going to sleep in my own room tonight." She answered knowing he wouldn't like it. "As much as I love waking up with you, I still need time to myself…to just…be alone for a bit." She told him.

He stuck his bottom lip out like a pouting little kid making her laugh. "Please don't make me sleep alone." He begged making her smile and shake her head.

"Goodnight, Damon." She told him and shoved him into his room, still with the pouty look on his face as she turned away from him.

She was headed down the hall from Damon's room to hers when she started to get the feeling in the pit of her stomach. Instead of doing what she knew she should have done and run to Damon, she followed the feeling to her room and opened the door. She didn't see Elijah sitting in her desk chair until she walked inside and flipped on the light. "Oh my god." She jumped and started to whoosh the room but he whooshed in front of her.

"I would not advise that." He told her with a smirk on his face.

**A/N:** Hope everyone is still enjoying this story. Sorry if this chapter was boring. I feel like it was...


	20. Chapter 20

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 20**

"Do you know who I am?" He asked with a smile touching the corners of his lips as he turned and shut her bedroom door.

"You're Elijah," She answered, feeling drawn to him, "the original vampire who for some reason… shows up in my dreams every night."

"It is remarkable, how much you look like your past self." He brushed her hair behind her ear then cupped her cheek in his soft hand.

Katie hated the fact that something inside her made her feel like kissing him. Instead she decided to play dumb. "I don't understand."

He dropped his hand from her face and walked back over to her desk. "This suggests otherwise." He held up the drawing of Hannah and her family then set it down on the desk and picked up her vervain necklace. "I've been keeping an eye on you since I saw you in that coffee shop. I felt you," he looked away from the pendent in his hand to Katie, "just like you felt me." He looked back down to his hand, studying the moon and star pendant. "So I know you've been recovering your past memories." He put the necklace back on her desk and started looking at the history paper that she had been working on. "What I don't understand is why you have only been getting your memories back since you turned."

"You were watching me and Damon this morning. Weren't you?" She asked him with an attitude as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Yes." He answered looking up from the paper on her desk. "I see your adulterous tendencies didn't change with your new life."

"Excuse me?" Katie asked with a glare as she took a few steps closer to him. The magnetic feeling was causing her to subconsciously get closer to him.

"Lying with vampire while involved with a human." He told her with a smirk that made her want to slap him. "It's not so different than you and I really."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Katie told him with a creased, confused brow. "All I know is that we met in the woods, you needed my blood because for some reason you couldn't just take it from who ever for what ever reason. So you healed Jonah and promised me food in return for my blood and I accepted the deal because it was my only option. Then somehow I wind up making out with you in my bedroom and your brother showed up and ripped my head off." She ranted at him.

"You should know more than that. You should have been recovering your memories through dreams your whole life." He answered with confusion in his voice and Katie could tell by the look on his face he was trying to figure out what was wrong. "I believe someone has tampered with your mind."

Katie didn't realize that during her ranting she had been slowly walking closer and closer to him until he lifted his hands and threaded his fingers into her hair, holding each side of her head in his hands. "The last time someone grabbed my head like this they snapped my neck." She said as she looked into his hazel eyes, feeling dazed by them.

Elijah smiled. "I simply want to get into your head and figure out who tampered with the binding of our souls."

Katie quickly brought her fists up in front of her face then moved them outward, knocking his hands off of her head. "I'm sorry the what, of our what?" She asked taking a step back from him with a glare. Elijah started laughing quietly. "What's so funny?" She asked still glaring at him.

He stopped laughing, but still had a smile on his face. "You used to swipe my hands off you like that all the time and it is just so refreshing to be with you and see that you haven't changed." Katie just stared at him like he was crazy. "Back to business." He closed the space between them and held his hands in the air on each side of her head. "May I?" Katie found herself actually considering letting him in as she stared skeptically at him. "I assure you I will not hurt you or pry where I do not belong."

Katie nodded so he slid his fingers into her hair, the heel of his palms resting on her temples. When he closed his eyes she closed hers. The image of her father holding her hand when she was six years old as they walked up the steps of Sheila Bennett's house filled her minds eye. When he knocked, Bonnie's grandmother opened the door and stepped aside letting them in.

"If her soul has been linked to another as you say, there is nothing I can do to unbind them." Sheila told Katie's father who looked down at Katie where she sat on Sheila's couch playing with a Barbie doll. "As long as her soul is bound to a vampires, she will keep coming back as long as he lives."

"And you have no idea how to kill an original?" Her father asked and Sheila shook her head no. "Please." Her father begged. It had been so long since Katie had seen her father that she had forgotten his mannerisms. Like he way he animatedly moved his hands around as he spoke and the fact that she had gotten her nervous habit of picking at her cuticles from him. "She's been having these horrible dreams. She wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. Is there anything you can do to stop them?"

"I can't undo another witch's spell." Sheila told him with a hard face, but as she looked down at Katie it softened. "But I might be able to block her past memories, like putting a dam in that part of her brain."

"Thank you." Her father looked down at his daughter with worried eyes then back at Sheila who sat down beside Katie and laid a hand on Katie's head as she started chanting.

Her memories jumped forward in time to when she was ten years old, sitting on the porch steps of Elena's house watching her parents leave for New Orleans. The sunlight illuminating her mothers blond hair causing it to look like she wore a halo. "We have to do this. Getting into their inner circle and making sure neither of them ever know of her existence is the only way to keep her safe." Her father told her mother who had stopped to look back at the pouting Katie. "It's for her own good."

"Leaving her to be raise by my father is for her own good?" Her mother asked her father with a frown. Her father grabbed her mother's wrist and practically dragged her to the car.

Elijah took his hands off of her head and she opened her eyes to see him looking at her with a frown. She didn't realize she had been crying until he cupped her face in his hands and wiped her tears with his thumbs. "My parents died trying to protect me from you...my father is still trying to protect me from you..."

"Your parents died trying to protect you from my brother." He corrected her and she just stared at him, tears still slipping down her cheeks that he still held.

His touch, how it was making her want to wrap her arms around him and cry onto his shoulder was only making her cry harder because she didn't want to be having these unfounded feelings for him. "Please take your hands off me."

Elijah did as asked and walked over to lean on the footboard of the four poster bed while Katie moved to lean her hips back on the desk. "Your son Jonah lived on, telling his children of the spell his mother had a friend cast on her and her vampire lover. Warning them that she would come back and in doing so bring nothing but death to all who knew her." He explained. "Your parents knew you had returned and tried to keep you from me."

"Because being with you resulted in your brother ripping my head off." Katie popped off.

"If you will let me," he walked over to her and once again the magnetic pull she felt caused her to resist grabbing him and hugging him, "I would very much like to give you back your memories of us myself." He placed a hand on the side of her head.

She smacked his hand away once again making him smile. "No."

Elijah gave her a challenging look. "You do realize that I can force them into your head rather you want them or not?" While his tone was polite there was an underlying threat in it.

"I do." She replied not backing down as she glared at him with flared nostrils. "And I am asking you not to. If you love me as much as it feels like you do, then you will leave me be. You will let me be happy with the life that I have."

"You mean with Damon?" he asked rhetorically. "He is not worth the air that you breathe. You deserve better."

Katie's eyes turned dark and glaring as her face hardened and the blood flooded to her eyes simply from the anger that coursed through her veins. "I don't care if you're some un-killable original who could probably kill me with a freaking toothpick flicked from your fingers." She told him as she started walking over and stopped few inches from being chest to chest with him. "I don't care if my soul is linked to yours. I love Damon and nothing you can do will change that. So go ahead. Give me back my memories. It won't change a single thing because I will always…choose…Damon."

He cupped her cheek in his hand again and Katie could tell by the slight squint of his eyes that he was trying to decide what to do. He slid his hand down her neck to rest on her shoulder. "I can see you truly mean what you say. I will leave you be, but you will continue to get your memories back on your own. I will not stop that." He stared into her eyes for a moment, a sad smile on his lips. "If you change your mind or need me, as I'm sure some day you will, close your eyes and call to me. I will feel you and come to you." He told her as he moved his hands to lightly hold the sides of her neck gently rubbing the sensitive skin below her ears.

When he slowly started leaning into her staring deeply into her eyes, giving her ample time to pull away, she couldn't. The magnet in her chest was pulling too hard and as his lips brushed hers her eyes slipped closed and she turned her head away. How she managed to turn away from such a pull was beyond her. A rush of air blew her hair around and when she opened her eyes he was gone along with the pull in her chest.

Needing to do something normal and feel like a normal teenager she sat down at her desk and put all of her energy into the history paper that still needed a lot of work.

~*Dream*~

"I am a harlot." Hannah said not looking at Elijah where he lay beside her, but stared up at the wood plank ceiling. "I have a husband and yet I lay with another."

"A husband you have not laid eyes on in over two years." Elijah pointed out. "Have you received word from him since he left on that ship?" he asked and Hannah shook her head no as a tear slipped down her cheek. "I think the grieving period is long over. No one will blame you for moving on."

"That is not the point." She said as she rolled over in the bed, a plain off white sheet covering her body. "I still have a ring on my finger."

"Then maybe it is time you take it off." He suggested and Hannah just stared at him. "There are only two reasons a man would stay away from his wife and son for that long. He has died or found another." Hannah turned from him and stood from the bed, pulling a sleeping gown over her head before she walked out of the bedroom to the living space and kitchen area.

She sat down at the candle lit desk, twisting the plain gold band on her finger as she thought of her husband. Deep down she knew Elijah was right. Ronan had either died on his journey over seas or found a new life elsewhere. With a sinking heart she pulled the ring from her finger and placed it on the desk. She moved an empty piece of parchment in front of her, uncapped the inkwell then grabbed the quill. "Jonah, for your eighteenth birthday I give you this, a piece of the father you never really knew. Do with it what you will." She put the note and ring in the center of a brown cloth then wrapped it up, tied it closed with twine and placed it in the drawer of the desk for safe keeping.

* * *

"Katie." Damon's voice pulled her from her dream. "Katie Cat." He drawled then rubbed her shoulder. She groaned and sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "I'm kind of disappointed that you didn't come to me last night like you usually do."

"Sorry, I was kind of busy." She said with a yawn.

"I can see that." Damon said with a look at the history paper she had fallen asleep on.

"I wasn't talking about the history paper." She sighed as she stood up and stretched realizing that she still had on her clothes from the day before and could use a shower. "I had every intention of taking a shower, writing a journal entry then listening to music while I did a little work on my paper then slipping into your bed and cuddling with you."

"So what stopped you?" he asked curious as to why she had fallen asleep at her desk.

"Elijah." She answered looking down at her hands as she picked at her cuticles.

"What?" Damon asked and Katie glanced up at him to see his hard expression.

"He was here, in my room. I felt him near, but I didn't realize exactly how close he was until I opened my bedroom door and saw him." She explained.

He hooked his finger under Katie's chin and made her look at him. "What did he want?"

"Do you want the long version or the short one?" she asked as she pushed his hand aside and walked over to her duffle bag that was on the floor at the foot of her bed.

"Long." He answered wanting to know everything about what happened.

She put her bag on the bed and started digging though it for clean clothes. "He's been keeping an eye on me since the coffee shop. Turns out, a witch linked our souls. As long as he lives I will keep getting reincarnated to be with him. I should have been dreaming about my past all my life. He asked if he could get into my head and find out why I only started getting my memories back after I turned." She said as she put a grey Aeropostale shirt with red lettering onto the bed.

"Did you let him?" he asked with wide curious eyes and when Katie nodded his face turned angry. "Why?"

"Because I wanted to know too." She answered reluctantly. "He found memories that I had forgotten. Memory's of my parents." She pulled a pair of black shorts out of the bag and tossed them over with the shirt.

"Tell me about them." He told her as he moved the bag out of her reach. "I want to know."

Katie sighed and sat down on the bed. "When I was six my father brought me to Bonnie's grams. He tried to get her to undo the binding of our souls, but she couldn't undo another witch's spell. So instead she blocked the memories. When I turned, the dam broke." She answered. "He also showed me the day my parent's left for New Orleans. They were talking about getting into "their" inner circle and keeping them from finding out I existed. Mom didn't want to leave me to be raised by Grandpa, but Dad forced her to." She took a deep breath forcing back tears because she was tired of crying all the time. "He forced her to leave me and now she's dead."

Damon sat down beside her and folded his hands in his lap. "Did anything else happen?"

"He wanted to give me all my memory's of us back." she looked up at Damon feeling guilty even though she hadn't done anything wrong. "I told him no and he threatened to force them back into my head, but I begged him not to, told him that no matter what he put in my head that it wouldn't matter because I'd always choose you. So he didn't force the memories into my head." she explained.

"Anything else?" he asked again knowing there was a reason that Katie was looking at him with guilty eyes.

"He told me that if I ever need him or changed my mind to close my eyes and call for him and he'd feel me and come." She told him as she picked at her cuticles not taking her eyes off of his. "He tried to kiss me. I turned away and he left."

Damon stood up from the bed with murderous eyes. "I'm going to kill him!"

"No, you're not." Katie stood up and whooshed over to stand in front of him.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't." he told her with wide, raging mad eyes.

"Because he is an original vampire that can't be killed, you've tried." She told him as she grabbed his hands in hers. "And because no matter what he does or what I remember about him I will never want him. Like I told him, I will _always_ choose you." she told him, her eyes bouncing back and forth between his. "And also because we have bigger fish to fry." She placed his hands on her hips and hers on his shoulder. "How is Rose?"

"It's not looking good. I'm going to find Jules and see if there's an antidote." He told her as he started to simmer down. "You're not the only one who got a visit from Elijah last night."

"What?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

"He went to Elena, made a deal with her. He promised to keep everyone she cares about safe as long as she stops trying to get herself killed. Apparently he doesn't want the curse to be broken either. Elena also got him to get his witches to drop the spell and get Stefan out of the tomb." He said as he pulled her into him.

"What about Katherine?" Katie asked not eager to meet the bitch any time soon.

"Elijah compelled her to stay in the tomb." He answered.

"So he can't die and he can compel other vampires, awesome." Katie sighed as she rested her head on Damon's chest.

"Yep, which brings me to the main reason I woke you up." He said as he held up a little vial of clear liquid.

"What is that?" she asked as she picked her head up.

"Vervain." he explained as she took it from him. "Stefan and I are both taking it, building up a tolerance to it. You should too. Keep Elijah from compelling you."

"Will it keep him from getting back into my head?" she asked looking at it in the clear vial.

"I don't see why it wouldn't work." He answered as he went into her bathroom and grabbed the glass from the sink, filling it with a forth of an inch of water. "Dilute it, trust me you do not want it straight." He told her as he held the cup out to her and she poured the vervain into it.

Katie stared at the glass. "I do not want to do this." She complained with a cringe, but knew it was for the best.

Damon moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her. "I've got you. Now…bottoms up."

Katie tilted her head back and swallowed as much as she could as fast as she could, but it still burned her throat and drained her energy causing her to groan in pain and cough as her knees to give out, but Damon held her up until the pain passed. "Holy freaking hell! Please tell me one drink is enough."

"Should be." He answered as she turned in his arms. "Are you going to help me find a cure for Rose?"

"Unless you want me to ask Elijah I don't think I'll me much help." She answered. "Plus Caroline is forcing me to put on my cheer uniform and help out with the booster club barbecue benefit. Along with being mad about me breaking up with Tyler she keeps pushing me to participate in human stuff." She said as she let go of him and started looking though her bag again. "Do you want me to ask Elijah if there's a cure?" she grabbed clean underwear out of her bag.

"No, I don't want you anywhere near him." Damon told her sternly.

"Okay, then I need to shower and get going." She told him as she headed to her bathroom.

* * *

She stopped at her house and changed into her cheer uniform then headed to the barbecue. When she got there things were already in full swing and as she looked out the windshield her eyes landed on Caroline and Tyler talking and smiling. With a deep breath she got out of her car, "Let's get this over with. If I can drink vervain I can get through this stupid barbecue." She told herself as she headed over to Caroline who was walking away from Matt after he kissed her. "So why do I have to wear my uniform, but you get to wear street clothes?" Katie asked and Caroline smiled.

"Because I'm the captain." She answered and Katie deadpanned. "What?"

"It's because you're head cheerleader that you should be proudly displaying your _team spirit_." Katie said the last two words with over the top enthusiasm as she pumped her fists into the air then went back to dead panning.

"Come on, don't be mean just because you've lost touch with your humanity." Caroline told her as they slowly started over to a table that was serving links on a bun.

"You've been around Stefan too much." Katie said because of the jab at her humanity. "And my humanity is perfectly fine."

"Really, would human you have broken up with Tyler?" Caroline asked with a snippy look.

"No, because human me wanted a human life with the human guy she'd had a crush on since junior high." Katie said quietly as she looked around seeing Tyler in his football jersey and jeans. "I never got to tell him, but I did love him, Caroline." Tyler could feel her looking at him and looked her way. "I thought I could do this…" Katie breathed out then looked at Caroline who had a sad look on her face. "I can't, I'm sorry."

* * *

Katie didn't bother going home to change out of her uniform and went straight to the boarding house instead. But as soon as she walked through the front door she knew something was wrong. "Elena?" she called as she walked through the house looking for her. Her last stop was Stefan's room. "Elena?" she called as she walked up the stairs.

"Katie?" Elena called but didn't open the door.

"Yeah." Katie called and tried to open the door but something was blocking it. "Why is the door blocked?"

"Rose is going crazy. She keeps trying to kill me. She thinks I'm Katherine." Elena called.

"Okay, stay there. I'll see if I can find her." Katie told her and as she turned to go back down the stairs she came face to face with Rose, her ravenous eyes glaring at Katie. "Rose?" Katie asked but she just kept staring at her. "Please, relax and think. Do you remember me?" Rose still just looked at her, blood dripping down her chin. "I'm Katie. Damon and I…we protected you from a werewolf that tried to kill you." Rose blinked like Katie was getting through to her. "And Elena, the human on the other side of that door…she kept Damon and Stefan from killing you. We care about you. Please, let us help you."

Rose blinked as she started to calm down. "Katie?" she asked as she started to cry. "Katie please help me. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't want to hurt anybody."

Katie pulled Rose in for a hung. "I'm so sorry, Rose." Katie told her as she called her. "Come on. Let's go down stairs."

They walked into the parlor and Katie helped Rose sit down on the couch. "Katie I don't know how long I have before I lose it again." Katie sat down on the wooden bench across from her. "I almost hurt Elena."

Remembering the cell in the basement Katie realized there was only one thing she could do to help Rose. "I can only think of one way to keep you from hurting anyone." Katie answered as she stood up and held her hand out for Rose. She helped Rose down to the basement and motioned to the cell. "I know it's definitely not the most comfortable of places, but it's the only place I can think of that you can't break through in a rage."

"No, it's fine. I appreciate it." she told Katie who helped her sit down in the chair.

"I'll see what I can find to make it more comfortable." Elena said from behind them. "Do you know where Damon and Stefan are?"

"All I know is Damon went looking for Jules hoping to get a cure out of her." Katie answered as she walked out of the cell then turned and locked it. "I need you to keep and eye on her." Katie told Elena as they headed out of the basement.

"Why, where are you going?" Elena asked as Katie handed her the key to the cell.

"To do what I can to find a cure for Rose." Katie answered then headed for the front door. "Call me if you need help."

* * *

Katie sat on her back porch in the wooden swing that hung from the porch covering, fidgeting with her daylight ring as she thought about the repercussions of what she was about to do. She knew she cared about people too easily, but if she didn't care it would mean that she had flipped the switch on her humanity like Caroline thought she was close to doing. It was because she cared about Rose that she closed her eyes and called to Elijah in her mind. After a few minutes of sitting there like an idiot with her eyes closed she gave up and angrily kicked the ground causing the swing to start moving at the same time her chest started aching.

She gasped and looked up to see him leaning on the pole of the porch with a small smile on his face. "I have to admit, after our talk last night I didn't think you would call me so soon."

"I didn't call you for me or…us." she said as she stood up. "And all I can do us hope that you don't get mad at me for calling you just to ask you a question."

"Ask me your question and we'll see." He told her with a pursed lip smile as he noticed her slowly closing the distance between them as they talked.

"Is there a cure or…antidote, spell, anything to heal a werewolf bite?" she asked as she took another step.

"I had a feeling you were going to ask me that." He said not losing any of his cockiness as she took the final step to put them standing a foot apart.

"Are you going to answer it or not?" she asked getting a little antsy as she picked her foot up and started tapping the toe of her converse into the wood of the porch.

A smile touched his eyes as he looked down at her foot. "I will offer you a deal." He told her as he brought his eyes up to her face. "I will answer your question if you let me give you a single memory."

"I can't accept that deal." She told him with a shake of her head as she crossed her arms over her chest uncomfortably.

"Why not?" he asked as he also looked her up and down taking in her short shorts and grey t-shirt.

"Because I'm on vervain." She answered knowing he was going to find out one way or another. "And if you give me memories of us they will be your memories, moments that you shared with me and they will be from your point of view, not mine. So they will be tainted by what ever _you_ felt during those moments. I don't want them like that. I want them to come from me. I want to feel them as _I_ felt them then." She answered feeling breathless from the look he was giving her, like she had just punched him in the gut. "I'm sorry, but you have to understand where I'm coming from."

"I do." He told her with strained eyes. "I don't like it, but I understand."

"Thank you." Katie told him with a small nod. "So are you going to answer my question?"

"Have lunch with me tomorrow and I will answer your question." He told her with a curious look in his eyes, wondering if she was going to accept his offer.

Katie took in a deep breath looking aggravated. "You're putting me in a very hard spot. Damon's already going to be mad at me for calling you in the first place. He won't he happy to hear I've promised to see you again."

"Is he abusive to you?" he asked with worried eyes.

"No, I've been abused before. I'd never put myself in the position to be again." She told him honestly. "But he doesn't trust easily and I don't want to break that trust."

"If he trusts you." he pointed out. "Then he should have no problem with tomorrow."

Katie scratched at the back of her neck with a sneer. "Son of a bitch." She scoffed. "Fine, but I am not agreeing because I want to be around you. I'm agreeing because my friend is in pain and needs help."

"There is a cure for a werewolf bite." He told her and a smile took over her face. "But unfortunately is it not easy to come by and even if we could find it we wouldn't get it before your friend dies." Her smile faded as her eyes slipped to the floor. "I am truly sorry about Rose. I liked her. She was loyal and that is not something that is easy to come by."

Katie nodded and looked up at him with misty eyes. "Thank you for the information." She started down the porch steps and when she reached the bottom he called her name. "Yes?" she asked as she turned back to look at him.

"I would much prefer to call each other with a phone rather than our connection." Relieved that her phone number was all he wanted she headed back up the steps as she pulled her phone out of her back pocket. She handed him her phone and he handed her his. She put her number into his phone and he hers. "I trust you did not give me a fake number?" Katie laughed a little at his question as they handed each other's phones back. "What's funny about that question?"

"Nothing." Katie shook her head. "It's just uh," she tucked her hair behind her ear at the bitter sweet memory his question brought up. "Tyler pretty much asked me the same thing when I gave him my number. But he asked because he thought I wasn't interested in him and just didn't want to tell him. I assume you asked…because you don't trust me." She answered with a questioning look.

"I trust you." he answered. "It is the influencers in your life I do not trust."

"Fair point." Katie said with a nod as she pressed her lips together. "Not to sound rude, but is that all you need from me? I have bad news to deliver and a friend to be there for after said bad news."

"Yes, that is all I need." He told her with a nod.

"Okay. Then I will see you tomorrow I guess." She told him then headed for her car not looking forward to telling Damon.

* * *

"Where have you been?" Damon asked as Katie moved to stand in his doorway, looking at him where he laid on his bed with Rose leaning against him seemingly asleep.

"Trying to find out if a cure for a werewolf bite exists." She said with a point at Rose.

"Did you find anything?" He asked as she walked further into the room.

"Yes. There is a cure, but there is no way to get it in time." She answered as she got ready for his next question.

"What is the cure?" he asked as she sat down on the bed.

"I don't know he wouldn't tell me, but I believe that he was telling the truth." She answered.

"You talked to Elijah." He observed with a pissed off face.

"I couldn't bear to see her like that. Please don't be mad at me." She told him with begging eyes.

"We'll talk about this later." he told her with a shake of his head but his expression didn't change. "Join us." Katie took his hand and closed her eyes.

She looked around to see she was in an open green field with a bright blue sky above them and horses grazing nearby. "Katie. You're here." She looked down to see Damon and Rose sitting on the ground near her.

"Yeah, I'm here." Katie told her as she set down on the other side of Damon. "This is beautiful, where are we?" Katie asked with a look at Rose and Damon.

"My home, back when I had one." Rose answered as Damon wrapped his arm around Katie's waist and she hugged him from the side. "You two really are cute together." She told them with a smile then turned her eyes to Damon. "She loves you." She gave Damon a second to let it sink in then looked back and forth between them. "Trust me, the kind of love that you to have for each other…it only comes once in a lifetime, immortal or not. Don't screw it up."

"Why do you have to look at me when you say that?" Damon asked with a smile holding his hands out to the side. "She's the one that ran to Elijah today."

"And I would do it again if it meant even the smallest chance that it could save my friend." Katie told him in her defense.

"Thank you, Katie. I spent my whole life running from him and Klaus, and you did the opposite just to help me. I don't take that lightly." She told her with a sad smile. "I'm kind of sad that I can't stick around and be a friend to the both of you the way you've been to me."

"You two are ruining a perfect day with your heavy hearted crap." Damon said breaking them up.

"He's right, we should just enjoy this while it lasts." Katie said as she let go of Damon and leaned back on her hands feeling the sun on her face.

"The sun is so warm…I miss this." Rose said then looked across her shoulder at Damon and Katie. "I miss being human."

"Humanity's not all it's cracked up to be." Damon replied and Katie had to wonder if he was lying…if he really missed being human and didn't want to show it. She knew she missed it and it had only been a month or two since she turned.

"I had friends. I had family. I mattered." Rose argued.

"You still do." Damon replied as he reached over and grabbed her hand. When something brushed Katie's shoulder she looked over to see a horse's face in her face.

"Okay, horses freak me out, so…Rose," Katie told her and stood up and looked down at Rose, "This isn't goodbye it's see you later, so see you later." Katie let go of Damon's hand and left Rose's dream. She watched with a sinking heart as Damon picked up a wooden stake and positioned in over Rose's heart with a shaking hand and a tear slipped down her cheek when she saw one slip down his. She'd never see him cry before. "Damon, let me, please." She asked as she reached out for the stake, but he shook his head no. So she stepped back and watched as he staked her causing her skin to turn blue as veins rose to the surface of her skin.

She wiped her cheeks and turned her eyes to the floor. "Help me bury her?" he asked, breaking the silence of the room.

* * *

Neither of them said a word the whole time they were burying her and the silence continued as Katie headed to Damon's bathroom and started drawing a bath. "The silence is killing me…" she said as she stood from where she sat on the side of the tub to look at him where he stood in the middle of his room. "I have no idea what's going through your mind, please… say something."

"What am I supposed to say, Katie?" he asked as he walked over to stand just on the other side of the bathroom archway across from her. "That I'm not mad at you?" he asked, looking at her like he didn't know what he was feeling.

"If that's how you feel, then yes." Katie answered with a shrug.

"Well it's not." He answered. Katie nodded and moved to turn the water off, but he zipped over and stopped her. "I am pissed at you for running to him like I didn't have things under control. Like what I was doing to help her wasn't good enough."

"That's not how I meant to make you feel." Katie answered as she sat down on the side of the tub.

"Well you did." He told her with a glare.

She looked down at her hands in her lap and started picking at her nails. "I shouldn't have gone to him for help."

"No, you shouldn't have." Katie still just looked down at her hands. "But not because it made me feel like shit." She looked up at him. "You have never been scared of us, of vampires, but you should be scared of him. He is an _original_, Katie. No matter what this soul binding crap is making you feel he will have no problem putting a stake through your chest if you stand in the way of what he wants."

Katie turned the water off then stood up from the tub. "I'm sorry." She told him as a tear slipped down her cheek.

"I know you are." He sighed and pressed his forehead to hers.

Katie looked into his eyes. "There's more." She told him knowing he wasn't going to like what she was about to say, "In order to get an answer about the cure I agreed to have lunch him with tomorrow."

He sighed with a sneer and instead of pushing her away he grabbed her hips and pulled her closer. "Make sure you talk in a public place where he can't kill you, please."

"The grill it is." She sighed as she wrapped her arms around him. "You can come too if you want. He didn't say we had to talk alone."

"Hard pass. You can flirt information out of him easier if I'm not there." He told her as he pulled back away from her and started taking off his shirt.

"What?" she asked a little shocked.

"You're going to be talking to him, might as well milk it for what it's worth and he'll open up more if he thinks this mystical connection you two share is working." Katie still just stared as he started unbuckling his pants. "I trust you." he told her as if it was the obvious answer. "Now are you going to take a bath with me or what?"

Katie started laughing and cleared the space between them kissing his as he undressed her.

* * *

Katie sat in the tub, leaning back against Damon who played with the bubbles on her shoulders. "I know you told Rose that being human isn't all it's cracked up to be, but…do you ever miss it?"

"Yes." He answered after a few seconds.

"Me too and I've only been a vampire for a few months. I can only imagine how much you miss it." she told him as she laid her head back against his chest.

"I miss it more than you could ever imagine." He told her sounding like his head was elsewhere so Katie turned in his arms and wrapped her legs around him. "But if I had never become a vampire I wouldn't have met you. My moral compass even when I don't want one." He gave her a smile that made her laugh.

"You know, I've never actually said, 'hey, don't kill that guy'. If anything I've given you permission to kill people. Like mayor douche bag and I was disappointed that John Gilbert had one of those resurrection rings. Then again he did turn out to be Elena's bio dad so I guess that was a good thing." she said as she reached up and scratched at the back of her neck. "And other than it ruining sports for Mystic falls, I'm kind of glad you killed coach Tanner."

"You don't have to tell me not to kill people, because I've started asking myself, 'will Katie be pissed if I do this?' and if the answer is a strong yes then I don't do it." he told her as he slid his hands around her waist.

Katie started laughing, "So what should I ask myself when I'm feeling murderous?" she asked as she scooped up some bubbles and booped him on the nose with them.

"You don't feel murderous. You're you." he said as he wiped the bubbled off his nose.

"Really? I can recall a time I stabbed you in the hand with a piece of broken glass just because you pissed me off. I'd hate to know what that anger would come out as now that everything is heightened." She said as she watched her hands slide up his wet chest to hold each side of his neck.

"Then I'd say you're screwed." He laughed. "Because we all know I'm no one's moral compass." He pressed his lips to hers as he stood from the tub and walked over to the bathroom cabinet setting her down on it.

After they had dried off they settled into bed and finally put an end to the long day.

**A/N:** Sorry if this feels like another filler chapter. With Elijah coming into the picture there's going to be a lot of KatiexElijah backstory.


	21. Chapter 21

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 21**

The feel of Damon's lips on her cheek pulled her from yet another repeat dream of Elijah and Hannah. Katie decided to play with Damon and pretended to still be asleep as he kept kissing her in an attempt to wake her up. He kissed her other cheek then her chin, her neck, her chest and when she pressed a kiss to her stomach, just below her belly button she couldn't help but laugh. He did it again knowing it tickled her. "Okay, okay, I'm awake." She laughed as she reached down and hooked her hand under his chin, pulling him up to kiss him on the lips. "Good morning."

"Good morning." He echoed back then reached over and grabbed her phone. "You got a message from Elijah last night." He handed it to her to see Elijah's name on the screen with a message under it.

She opened the message, "Lunch at the Mystic Grill, 12:00. Come alone." She read out loud then clicked her phone off and tossed it aside. "That gives me five hours to hide away in bed with you." she said as she rolled over onto her side to look at him."

"As much as I would love that, don't you have work?" he asked and Katie turned her eyes to the sheets they were laying on.

"Yeah…no. I quit." She answered. "It's just another part of my old life that I can't fit myself back into. There's too much vampire crap going on for me to actually make it through a full shift."

"I won't argue with that decision." He told her as he rolled them over and laid to the side of her as he brushed her hair to the side, admiring her. "But if you quit your job what are you going to do about paying your bills?"

"Compel the repo. man when he comes to repossess my car? Sell my house and all the bad memories it holds? I don't know, but I'd rather quit than be flaky." Katie answered and Damon looked at her with a face that said he wanted to say something, but didn't know if he should. "Whatever you're thinking, say it."

"I can't see you making this decision a few months ago." He said exactly what she thought he was going to say.

"I wasn't a vampire stuck in the middle of vampire problems a few months ago. Now my soul is tied to an original vampire's, Elena is possibly going to be sacrificed and has no interest in stopping it and I have to go meet with said vampire that my soul is tied to and talk about who the hell knows what because the topic of he and I is going to be off limits." She said as she rolled them over and started kissing his face randomly. "Do you see time for waiting on tables and serving you bourbon in there anywhere, because I don't."

"Okay, you've made your point. I won't talk you into going back to work as long as you go to school." He told her making her roll her eyes.

"I've worked practically my whole life to go to college and make something of myself. That part of me hasn't changed. I'll go to school, make the best grades I can and when I slip, that's what compulsion is for." She said.

He rolled them back over and looked at her with warning eyes, "Katie." He drawled her name out.

"Damon." She drawled it out back at him. "I'm kidding. I'm not going compel my teachers…again." She added with a smile. "Now can you please take my mind off all of this until I have to shower and meet Elijah?"

Damon laughed and pressed his lips to hers.

* * *

At twelve sharp Katie walked into the grill and over to the table where she saw Elijah waiting for her. As soon as she sat down a waitress walked over to take their order. Katie simply ordered fries, something that could be eaten quickly or slowly depending on how fast she wanted the conversation to be over. Elijah didn't order anything and already had a glass of water sitting in front of him. "Can I start the conversation?" Katie asked as the waitress walked away.

"Yes, of course." He told her with a pleased smile.

"I have some…ground rules." Elijah smirked and waved for her to talk. "I don't know what you had planned for us to talk about today, but we aren't going to talk about my past life as Hannah, us or you and Hannah. Everything else is fine."

"Understood." Elijah told her with a nod. "So what do you do for fun?" he asked as the waitress walked over with their drinks.

Deciding to let him lead the conversation for now she answered the question. "Before Katherine snapped my neck I…" she tried to think of the things she considered fun. "wrote poetry, hung out with my friends and was attempting and failing to teach myself to play guitar." She answered then grabbed her coke and took a drink. "Now…nothing."

"I know you're in school." She said remembering the history paper on her desk. "Any extracurricular activities?"

"Cheerleading, track and softball, but our coach was…" she was going to say murdered, but looked around the restaurant and changed her mind, "attacked by an animal. So all sports got canceled for the year." She answered getting an odd look from him.

"You don't come across as the kind of girl who would enjoy cheerleading." He said with a look that said he was intrigued.

"Yeah, I know. My grandfather pushed me into it. Plus it's actually kind of fun pretending to be super peppy." Katie said as she crossed her arms over her chest. "What about you? Ever go to college?"

"Unfortunately no." he answered then took a drink of his water. Getting tired of the small talk, Katie looked down at her hands as she thought about asking him what she really wanted to know. "If you have a question, just ask. You do not have to be nervous around me."

"You saw my parents when you were in my head…" she started, putting her hands in her lap under the table so he wouldn't see her fidgeting. "Do you know them? Did they ever succeed in getting into your inner circle or whatever they were talking about?"

"No. I've never seen them before. They went to New Orleans. My family has not resided there since 1919. They were probably given outdated information." He told her.

Katie bit the inside of her lip as she looked down at the table with a frown. "Right, well." Katie sighed and scratched the back of her neck uncomfortable. "Maybe one of these days I'll find my father myself and as him what he's still doing there since he obviously isn't keeping you and you're brother from me."

"You have yet to call my brother by his name." Elijah pointed out. "You don't know it do you?" he asked and she shook her head no. "It's Niklaus."

"Niklaus as in Klaus?" Katie asked. "The oldest vampire in the history of time?"

"I am older than him, but yes." Elijah answered.

"Wow, okay." Katie blinked. "So do you have any more siblings who might want to kill me?" she asked then placed her elbows on the table and motioned for him to bring it on with her hands. "Hit me with some family history." She placed her arms on the table and leaned in clearly interested.

He smiled a little, pleasantly surprised with her playfulness. "My father was a wealthy land owner in a village in eastern Europe. My mother bore seven children." He started.

"So were you born a vampire or…?" Katie asked a little confused.

"How my family became vampires is a very long story for another time. I was born human as were my siblings. What you heard of my brother is true for all of us. _We_ are the oldest vampires in the world, the original family and from us all vampires were created."

"I have a feeling I'm going to be saying wow a lot during this conversation." Katie said as the waitress finally walked over with her fries and set them down in front of her.

"My family was quite close, but Klaus and my father did not get on too well. When we became vampires, we discovered the truth." As he spoke, Katie munched on her fries. "Klaus was not my father's son. My mother had been unfaithful many years before. This was her darkest secret. Klaus was from a different blood line." Katie's brows rose. "Let me guess, you are thinking…Wow?" he asked with a small smirk.

Katie laughed a little as she swallowed her food. "Actually I was thinking…Ooh scandalous." She said like an interested interviewer then smiled as she picked up a fry. "Please continue the story."

"When my father discovered this about Klaus he hunted down and he killed my mother's lover and his Entire family. Not realizing, of course, that he was igniting a war between species that rages until this day." He paused to give Katie time to put the pieces together.

"Vampires and werewolves." Katie said out loud. "Klaus is part werewolf…part vampire?"

"A hybrid, yes." He answered and Katie put down the fry she was about to eat. "A hybrid would be deadlier than any werewolf or vampire. Nature would not stand for such an imbalance of power. Therefore the witches, servants of nature, saw to it that my brother's werewolf side would become dormant."

When Katie saw Damon and Elena walk into the grill she frowned. "Will you excuse me for a minute?" Elijah nodded so Katie stood up and headed over to them. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Better question is why are you here with Elijah." Elena said with a confused look at Katie.

"I'll explain later." Katie told her then looked at Damon for answers.

"We just need to talk to John." He said with a point at John where he stood near Alaric and Jenna who were sitting at a table. She hadn't even noticed that they were at the grill. Katie frowned and looked back at Damon. "Don't worry. I'll keep my ears and eyes to myself." He told her then leaned into her as he said, "My lips, however…" he smiled right before he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into him as he kissed her.

Elena cleared her throat reminding them they were in a public place. So the broke the kiss and let go of each other. "So much for no PDA for a couple weeks." Katie said making Damon roll his eyes with a smile. "I'll see you later." She told him then walked back over to Elijah. "Sorry about that." She sighed as she sat down across from him. "So Klaus has a dormant werewolf gene." She prompted him to continue.

"I would like some fresh air. Care to take a walk with me?" he asked not liking the fact that Damon was now at the grill and most likely wasn't keeping his ears to himself.

Katie looked down at her cold fries and watered down coke. "Sure." She stood up and pulled cash out of her pocket.

"I have already covered the bill." He spoke up as he stood from the chair.

"But all you had was water." she argued with a point at the glass of water on the table.

"A gentleman never allows the lady to pay." He argued back making Katie smile. "Shall we?" he asked motioning for her to go first.

She put the money back into her pocket and they went outside, him opening the door for her like the gentleman he was. "Thank you." she told him with a polite smile as she stepped outside. Realizing that they were out in the sun she turned her eyes to his hands.

"Trying to see if I wear a daylight ring?" He asked as he held up his hand for her to see the lapis lazuli ring on his right hand. He then dropped it and held his arm out for her to take as they walked.

"I thought nothing could kill you." she said as she took his offered arm, slipping hers though it. Touching him even over the layers of his nice suit caused the feelings she always had when near him to stir in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't help looking up at him to see if he felt it too.

He gave her a small smile that told her he did. "That's not entirely true." He told her as they slowly walked down the sidewalk. "The witches won't allow anything truly immortal to walk the earth. Every creature needs to have weaknesses in order to maintain the balance." Katie looked across her shoulder at him curiously. "So while the sun will not kill me it still burns."

"What about fire?" Katie asked then glanced ahead of them.

"It hurts, but it will not kill me nor will a werewolf bite." He answered. "I hope you will forgive me for not telling you what _will_ kill me."

Katie looked up at him. "If you didn't already know what would kill me I wouldn't tell you either, no offense." They walked quietly for a minute as Katie thought about what all he had told her. "So if the sun won't kill you, why does Klaus want the sun and moon curse broken?"

"Ah, the curse of the sun and the moon." He said as he looked around them with a smile.

"Why do you say it like that?" she asked looking across her shoulder at his handsome face.

"Because it's not real." He told her straight out making Katie give him a tilt of her head with furrowed brows. "Klaus and I planted that story in Roman scrolls, African carvings, Aztec sketches and any other culture or continent we felt like."

"Why?" Katie asked as she placed her other hand on his arm.

"The easiest way to discover the existence of a doppelganger or to get your hands on some long, lost moon stone is to have every single member of two warring species on the lookout for it." he answered making her stare at him.

"So what do you need the moon stone and Elena for if not to break the sun and moon curse?" she asked not taking her eyes off of him as they walked. The smile he gave her suggested she already knew the answer to that question. "Oh my god." Katie gasped and stopped walking and let go of Elijah's arm. "He wants to unlock his werewolf gene."

"Yes. If allowed, Klaus would sire his own bloodline. He'd build his own race, endangering not just vampires, but everyone." Elijah told her as he walked around her to stand face to face with her.

"Do you plan on letting him do that?" Katie asked with wide, scared eyes. "I mean, you already admitted to helping him plant the sun and moon story all over the world."

"I helped him because I loved him. That's changed, now he must die." He told her and she just stared at him. "I promise you, I will not let him hurt you." He told her as he slid his hand over her cheek.

Hating the way skin to skin contact with him made her feel she grabbed his wrist and took his hand off of her. "Can I ask how you're planning on killing him?" she asked as she looped her arm back through his so that they were now walking back to the grill, facing the setting sun.

"I'm sorry. I can not reveal that information to you." he told her sounding genuinely sorry.

"Understandable." She told him with a hard faced nod.

"You are mad at me." He observed as he reached over and placed his hand over hers on his arm.

"I'm not mad." She couldn't help looking up into his eyes as they walked. "I'm grateful you have willingly told me everything that you have."

"Willingly?" he asked a little amused that she thought she could pull it out of him another way.

"Yeah…" she drawled as she looked down at the ground and kicked a rock sending it skipping down the sidewalk. "Damon suggested that I flirt with you to get you to open up." She admitted as she scratched the back of her neck uncomfortably then looked across her shoulder at him to see him giving her an amused smile. "I don't think he understands how…drawn, to you I already feel."

"That is the first time you have admitted to feeling something for me." He pointed out making her keep looking at him as they strolled along the sidewalk.

"It's not like I can keep ignoring the fact that every time you touch me I…" she trailed off with a shake of her head. "But it's not real." She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince, her or him. "It's just a spell put on us by Fiona."

"We are breaking your rules." He pointed out with a smirk.

"Right." She took in a deep breath and let it out. "Change of subject." She sighed as she looked over at him, taking in his hair and eyes. "I liked your hair better in the 1830's."

"You are flirting with me." He observed and she looked down at the ground then up at him through her lashes. "Well, I like your hair better now." She blushed a little and turned her eyes to the ground. "The wild curls were a bit…problematic." His words caused images to flash through her minds eye and she stopped walking causing him to stop and turn to see a confused look on her face as the images kept flashing. "What's the matter?"

"A memory." She answered as she closed her eye to see the images better.

Hannah was laughing as she hovered over him, her nose brushing his as she pressed her lips to his, her hair covering both of their faces. He rolled them over with lightening speed then sat them up. "That hair of yours while beautiful can be quite…" he paused and reached over the side of the bed, pulling the lacing out of her dress before he sat back up, "problematic." He was clearly annoyed but she just giggled as he brushed her hair back and tied it away from her face with the lace. "Now, where were we?" he asked and she leaned in brushing his nose with hers, teasing him by lightly brushing her lips across his. Needing more he grabbed the back of her head and pulled her into him kissing her hungrily as he rolled them over and sank into her.

While she was standing on the sidewalk with her eyes closed Elijah watched as her facial expression changed as if she was experiencing with the vision she was seeing. When she opened her eyes and looked at him, lust was in her eyes. "What did you see?"

Instead of answering him Katie zipped out of sight desperate to get away from him before what she was feeling won the battle that she was losing in such close proximity to Elijah. He looked around making sure no one was looking before he chased after her, finding her leaning against the back of one of the stores with her hands on her head that was leaned back against the bricks of the building, breathing hard.

He walked silently over to her and took her hands from her head, making her eyes snap open. In a flash she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him into her pressing her lips to his in a hungry kiss. He gripped her hips and picked her up, causing her to wrap her legs around him as he pressed her back into the building. As if her hands were not her own she started unbuttoning his shirt as he kissed her neck. But when the lust driven fog that had clouded her brain began to clear she forced herself to take her hands from him, slamming them back into the bricks, cracking one of them. "Stop…" the word sounded pained. He too was foggy headed and her word didn't make it though. "Elijah…please…stop." He stopped kissing her neck, but didn't let her go. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." She panted, resting her head on his strong shoulder.

"What did you see?" he whispered in her ear then back up so she could drop her legs from around him.

"We were in bed." She started as she took a step back and started buttoning his shirt. "My hair was in both of our faces, getting on your nerves. I thought your aggravation was funny." It was obvious to both of them that she was only buttoning his shirt out of the need to touch him. "You tied it back from my face and we started kissing and…" she breathed hard just from talking about it as she buttoned the last button, under his tie.

"I remember." He told her as she made herself step back and take her hands off of him. "Please, let me give you your memories." He almost begged, the desperation in his voice surprising her.

"I've told you why I don't want that." She argued. "No."

"Perhaps they don't have to come from me." He started as he cupped her face in his hand. "A witch once put a dam in your mind it could be possible for one to completely unlock all of your past memories, not just the ones of us, but…"

"No, Elijah." Katie insisted. "I'm sorry, we obviously loved each other…a lot, but I love Damon. I've made that clear from the beginning and it's still true now despite my mixed signals today." Part of her wanted to throw herself at him again and another part wanted to run to Damon. "If I have fulfilled my part of yesterday's agreement I would very much like to go home now." She looked around them just now realizing that it had gotten dark outside.

When she looked back at him she brought her hand up to grab the wrist of his hand that was still on her face. He leaned down and brushed his lips across hers like she had done to tease him in her memory. When she didn't kiss him back he pulled away and took his hand from her face. "You can go."

She sped away from him to the back of the grill where she walked around it and to her car. She was getting inside when her phone started ringing. "Your timing is incredible." She answered Damon.

"The blond werewolf has your blond friend." He told her angrily. "Where are you?"

"Getting into my car about to go home." She told him. "Where are you?" she asked right before he walked out of the grill and headed her way.

"I'm driving." He told her as he walked around to the driver's side and held his hand out for her keys. So she gave them to him and headed to the passenger side. "Tyler knows about us. Jules told him that we killed Mason. To make a long story short Stefan has Tyler and Jules has Caroline."

"Awesome." Katie sighed as she put on her seatbelt. "So where are you going?" she asked.

"A clearing near wickery falls." He answered as he started driving.

* * *

"Tyler is free to make his own decisions as soon as you release Caroline." They heard Stefan say as they walked up to where he and Tyler stood outside of a camper that Jules stood in front of.

"My brother the peace maker." Damon said as the walked up making Stefan and Tyler look at them.

"Katie?" Tyler asked looking at her across his shoulder as she moved to stand beside him and Damon.

"Hi." She told him quietly with a quick, awkward wave.

"Since Stefan got here before me I'm going to let him try it his way before I resort my way...which is a little bloodier." Katie shook her head at him then looked at Jules. "So give us Caroline."

"Let go of Tyler." Jules argued.

"Give us Caroline. Without a full moon it's not an even fight and you know it." Damon pointed out. "We will take you."

"I'm not so sure about that tough guy." Jules replied then whistled making more werewolves step out of the shadows. Most were carrying wooden stakes or other weapons and one had a tank of gas and a flame thrower. "Let's try this again. Give us Tyler."

Katie, Damon and Stefan all exchanged looks before Damon looked at Tyler. "You heard her." He jerked his head at Jules. "Get over there."

Tyler walked over and stood next to Jules before a guy standing closer to the camper asked. "Which one of you killed Mason?"

"Um...that'd be me." Damon answered not surprising anyone.

"Boys! Make sure that one suffers." The guy pointed at Damon with a stake.

The three of them looked around. "We can take them." Damon encouraged.

"I don't know about that." Stefan countered.

"Yeah...I think I'm with Stefan on this one." Katie said looking around at all the werewolves.

"Well then." Damon headed straight for Jules kicking off the fighting.

"Shit." Katie scoffed having no clue how to kill a werewolf or fight in general.

Stefan grabbed the guy who was now attempting to use the flame thrower and used him to hold off two werewolves. So seeing that they were distracted, Katie rushed over and broke one of their necks and when the second one made a move for her Stefan burned him with the flamethrower, distracting him enough for Katie to break his neck too.

When a wolf came at her she freaked and jumped high, avoiding his grappling move then landed right behind him and snapped his neck. One rushed up behind her and staked her between her shoulder blades causing her back to arch as she screamed out in pain. She fell on her stomach on the dirt and attempted to reach back to pull it out, but the wolf that stabbed her stepped on it, pushing it further in. She screamed, digging her nails into the dirt.

Damon tried to make a run for Katie, but Jules shot him in the shoulder making him fall to the ground. When Caroline came out of the camper Jules rushed to her and pinned her to the side of it, holding the gun to her head. Katie watched from the ground as Tyler stood in the doorway looking at Caroline with scared eyes. "Tyler, do something!" she yelled and the guy stepped on the stake again making her scream.

Tyler was about to take a step out of the camper when all of the wolves besides him grabbed their heads in pain and fell to the ground. Katie was pushing herself from the ground when Damon came over and pulled the stake from her back then helped her up and wrapped his arm around her side. "Elijah made a promise to Elena. I'm here to see it's upheld." The witch that knocked the wolves out spoke and Katie looked up to see that it was Luka's dad. "You need to go." Damon, Katie, Stefan and Caroline all walked over to him. "Get out of here, now."

Katie looked back at Tyler then let Damon help her walk away. When he got into the drivers seat she looked over at him. "How's your shoulder?" she asked with a nod to the bullet hole.

"Healed." He answered. "How's your back?"

"Healing." She answered as she rolled her shoulders. "I've only had one blood bag today." Damon reached over and cupped her face in his hand, looking at her with worried eyes. "I'm fine." She took it off of her face and kissed his palm. "Let's go home, a blood bag, a shower and your bed is calling my name." he gave her a smile and started the car.

* * *

Water poured over them from the shower head above them as Damon ran his hands over her sudsy skin. "Not gonna lie, seeing you break someone's neck tonight was kind of hot." Damon told her, his lusty voice in her ear before he kissed it.

She smiled and slid her arms over his that hugged her from behind. "It's kind of my only move." She told him as she turned in his arms, wrapping hers around his waist. "I've been thinking about asking Alaric to teach me how to fight."

"I can teach you how to fight." He said as he started kissing her neck.

"I think we both know that if you tried to teach me we'd just end up in bed." She told him with a smirk.

"Yeah, you're probably right." He said as he moved to kissing the other side of her neck. Katie pulled away from him to rinse the soap from her skin then step out of the shower. He could tell something was as off as soon as she walked away from him. "So what did you and Elijah talk about?" he asked as he finished showering without her.

"A lot." She answered. "Mostly him and Klaus and the sun and moon curse." She answered as she dried off.

"You know I can tell when you're keeping something from me right?" he asked as he turned off the shower and stepped out. Katie looked at him with guilty eyes as she wrapped her towel around herself. "What is it?" he wrapped a towel around his hips as he walked over to her.

"I think you and I have both severely underestimated how much my tie to Elijah…the bond we share…affects me." She said as she walked around him and into his room. He didn't like how she was avoiding his touch. "I had a new memory…a vision…come to me when I was around him today and it was…" she could think of a thousand different words to describe it, but none that she wanted to say to Damon. "Like the dream I had in your car." She said instead. Damon just stared at her, his jaw a little slack. "I…god this is hard to say to you…" she sighed as she headed to her clothes that she had layed on his bed.

"You love him…don't you?" he asked not moving from where he stood in the archway of his bathroom.

"No." she answered as she pulled on a pair of lace panties. "Right now, when I'm not around him…no." she grabbed her bra and put it on while thinking of the right thing to say without lying to him. "But when I'm near him…it feels like I do. And when I had that vision today…it was like dirty cupid shot me with an arrow and all I could think about was jumping his bones." She pulled on a tank top.

Damon walked over to his dresser and grabbed a pair of boxers. "So what did you do?"

"I ran." She answered as she pulled on a pair of cheer shorts then sat down on the bed. "But he didn't know what was wrong so he followed me." She watched him put on his boxers then turned to look at her with glaring, pissed off eyes.

"Just say it Katie." He told her as he walked over to her. "I can see it written all over your face so just…say it." his harsh tone caused her eyes to water.

"I lost control and I kissed him." she admitted in a shaky voice as a tear slipped. "I made a mistake."

Damon whooshed out of the room, slamming the door behind him and Katie flinched as a picture crashed to the floor, shattering the glass. Refusing to break down for the millionth time since she turned, she headed to the parlor where she knew alcohol would be in stock. She was staring at the decanter, playing with the rim of it as she debated getting drunk when Stefan walked in. "Are you okay?" he asked seeing the tear that betrayed her.

She quickly wiped it away and looked up at him and his worried eyes. "No." she answered letting her eyes fall back to the decanters in front of her.

Stefan walked over and took her hand off of the bottle then dropped it. "I have a healthier alternative."

"Yeah?" she asked not looking at him. "What's that?" she asked not really interested.

"Girls night at Caroline's." he said making Katie look up at him, confused considering she hadn't heard from her friends. "Both of you have had a hard night, Caroline more so. I think you could all use it." Katie stared at him, a little shocked that Stefan was suggesting a slumber party. "I thought you, Elena and Bonnie could surprise her."

"That…" Katie sighed looking around as if she might find Damon, "sounds like the best thing I've heard all day." Her reply made Stefan smile. "I'll go change and pack a bag then meet you guys there."

Katie went to her room, tore a piece of paper out of a spiral notebook and scribbled down a note for Damon. She taped it to his door then grabbed her things and headed out.

* * *

Katie, Elena and Bonnie stood on Caroline's front porch, each holding their pillows and overnight bags like a bunch of preteens, as Stefan knocked on the door. Caroline answered wearing a robe with her wet hair tied up in a bun. "Hey." She greeted Stefan since the girls were standing were Caroline could see them. "What's going on?"

"I was a bit worried about you after everything you went through tonight." Stefan told her with his hands in his pockets.

"I'm fine." Caroline replied with a smile.

"Good, but just in case, I…uh, brought some back up." He told her with a point over his shoulder as the girls stepped into view, Elena first.

"We're gonna slumber it." she told her as she stepped inside.

"We haven't done it in ages." Bonnie told her as she walked inside.

"It's long over due." Katie chipped in as the three of them hugged Caroline who started crying.

* * *

The girls sat around on Caroline's bed surrounded by junk food with bowls of ice cream in their laps. The three girls giggled and laughed, letting lose, but Katie just stared down at the strawberry ice cream that she swirled around with her spoon. "Hey!" Caroline said as she snapped her fingers in Katie's face getting her attention. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing, just distracted…I guess." She said as she picked up a potato chip and dipped it in the melted ice cream.

"Well, talk about it." Caroline told her and Katie shook her head no.

"Come on, that's what tonight is all about." Elena pressed.

"Y'all are happy and laughing, I…don't want to squash the mood." Katie brushed them off then ate the chip.

"Kaite…" Bonnie sighed making Katie look up at her. "Talk to us."

"Tonight is all about making Caroline feel better." Katie tried again, but her friends all dead panned at her. "Fine…I…" Katie sighed. "Dear lord where do I start."

"Try the beginning." Bonnie told her making Katie smile.

"Okay…" Katie scratched at her head. "Well, after Damon healed me from the car wreck and before I turned I…found out that I was three weeks pregnant."

"What?" "Oh my god." "Oh, no." Bonnie, Caroline and Elena said at the same time.

"Does Tyler know?" Caroline asked.

"Yeah, but he doesn't know that I lost it because of Katherine." Katie answered then looked up from the bowl of ice cream to Caroline. "You were right when you said that my relationship was doomed from the moment Katherine killed us. I know I should've tried to make things work with him, I should have been there for him, but…just looking at him reminds me of the family I could have had, the _child_ I could have given a better life than the one I had."

"Hey, at least you're happy with Damon." Elena attempted to make her feel better, but all it did was make her feel worse.

"Yeah," Katie attempted to smile but it looked pained, "but just like last time we were together there is someone else in the picture making things complicated."

"Who is Damon going after now?" Bonnie asked with a frown.

"It's not Damon…it's me. I'm screwing things up." She answered as she leaned to the side and sat her bowl on the floor, no longer interested in it.

"What?" all three of them asked together.

Katie took a deep breath in an attempt to hold it together. "This is going to sound crazy, but my soul was linked to Elijah's in the 1830's by a witch names Fiona."

"That doesn't just sound crazy it is crazy. You weren't alive then." Elena told her with a shake of her head.

"Ever heard of reincarnation?" Katie asked then told them about how she came to be linked to Elijah.

"So do you love Elijah?" Caroline asked curiously.

"No. I love Damon with every bone in my body." Katie answered then grabbed a chip out of the bag in front of Caroline and tossed it into her mouth. "But when I'm around Elijah it's like…how I feel about Damon completely disappears and gets replaced by Elijah." She answered staring down at the bed. "When I'm around him I have to fight as hard as I possibly can to not hug him or kiss him…its torture."

"You went to him yesterday didn't you?" Elena asked making Katie look up at her. "You said you were going to do what you could to find a cure for Rose."

Katie nodded. "I promised him that if he told me if there was a cure that I would have lunch with him today."

"Did you?" Bonnie asked.

"Yep." Katie answered popping the p at the end of the word.

"That's why you were with him at the grill today." Elena realized and Katie nodded.

"Damon suggested that I flirt with him to get him to confide in me. I couldn't do that so I was just…friendly with him. I was holding his arm as we walked down the sidewalk and he made some comment about how he liked my hair better than Hannah's and a word he used triggered a past memory…a vision almost. I'll spare you the details, but when it was over…I ended up making out with him behind a store."

"Whoa." Bonnie said making Katie look up at her.

"Ew." Elena added.

"Is he a good kisser?" Caroline asked getting scolded by Elena and Bonnie, but for the first time that night Katie started laughing. "What?" Caroline asked.

"Nothing." Katie shook her head and stopped laughing but still smiled. "Becoming a vampire has changed you…but it hasn't changed you that much." Caroline smiled and shook her head at Katie. "Yes, he is a _very _good kisser." She answered. "But that's not the point. I told Damon what happened and he got pissed and just…took off. I don't know where he went, but I'm afraid he's going to do something stupid."

Elena pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Stefan. "Hey, is Damon there?" she asked and Katie could hear Stefan on the other end of the line. "No, I don't want to talk to him. I was just making sure he wasn't off doing something stupid to get back at Katie." She once again heard Stefan's reply. "Yeah, we're binging on calories, she's fine."

"Okay, no more boy talk unless they're famous." Bonnie told Elena and Katie as she urged Elena to hang up the phone. Elena told Stefan goodnight.

"Damon is at the boarding house. Stefan said he's been in the library, drinking since he got home." Katie sighed in relief. "Now, what Bonnie said, no more boy talk."

"Why don't we watch a movie?" Bonnie suggested.

"Oh, what about the notebook?" Caroline asked perking up.

"No." all three girls answered at the same time then started laughing.


	22. Chapter 22

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 22**

Katie lied in Caroline's queen bed between Bonnie and Caroline. She was having the best sleep she'd had since she turned thanks to Bonnie casting a one time spell on her to keep her from dreaming. So when Elena's phone started ringing waking them all up they groaned grumpily. "Go away." Caroline groaned right before Elena fell out of bed pulling the covers off of Katie and Bonnie. Elena grabbed her phone and answered it. "Elena." Caroline complained at Elena being loud.

Katie could hear Stefan's voice on the other end of the line. "Why do the Salvatore brothers have to be such early birds?" she groaned as she grabbed the blanket and pulled it back over her and Bonnie. She was about to drift back off to sleep when she remembered that she would probably dream about Elijah. So she slipped out of the bed, doing her best to not wake the two other girls, then grabbed her phone out of her shorts from the previous day and headed to the kitchen.

She had made a pot of coffee and was pouring a cup when Elena walked in. "Good morning." Elena greeted her as she grabbed a pack of pop tarts out of the pantry.

"Yeah it was, before someone's boyfriend called and woke me up." Katie complained as she sat down at the small table in the room.

"Sorry." Elena told her as she opened the extremely sweet pastries then threw away the silver wrapper.

"Don't worry about it." Katie told her flatly as she stared down at her steaming mug.

"Are you okay?" Elena asked with a worried look at her friend.

"Yeah." Katie gave Elena a tired smile. "I'm just haven't completely woken up yet."

"If you say so." Elena told her as if she didn't believe her. "I'm gonna head out. Tell the girls I said I had fun and see you later."

"Will do." Katie told her with a sarcastic salute that Elena didn't see because her back was already turned as she walked away.

Katie turned her eyes to her phone and unlocked the screen to see two messages, one from Damon and one from Elijah. So she opened the one from Damon first. "_Call me when you wake up_." With a heavy sigh she pressed the phone icon next to his name and called him. "Hi." Damon answered.

"You still mad at me?" Katie asked with a cringe, waiting for whatever his answer may be.

"Believe it or not…no." he answered making Katie cock her head to the side, confused. "You're silence tells me you're just as surprised as I am."

"I don't think surprised is a strong enough word." Katie replied as she picked up her coffee and took a sip. "You were so pissed when you left."

"Yeah I was and I wanted to rip his head off, but I stopped and thought about everything you said, not just the part about you kissing him." he told her making her eyes water.

"You did?" Katie asked managing to keep her voice from cracking.

"Let's just say I've lost control and made some mistakes of my own in my lifetime." He told her and she smiled as she wiped a tear that fell.

"Are you high?" She laughed the words in confusion. Damon wasn't usually a rational thinker.

"No. I told you I wouldn't let him come between us and I meant it." he told her. She could hear hangers moving around in the background. "So, the Lockwood's are hosting a high tea for a writer that's in town writing a book on small town Virginia. Want to come with me?"

"Let me guess, this writer is Elijah and you want to dangle me in front of him like a piece of meat that he can't have." She said as she picked up her cup and took a drink.

"Mmhmm." He hummed making her shake her head at him. "So will you go with me?"

"Nope." she answered.

"Aww come on." He begged thinking she wouldn't be able to say no.

"Do you know what happens to a piece of meat that gets tossed into a lions den?" Katie asked. "I'll pass."

"Fine." He whined. "How was the sleepover?" he asked changing the subject.

"Exactly what I needed. Bonnie cast a spell on me so that I could have one night of dreamless sleep." She answered then frowned and scratched at her brow. "I still need to fill you in on everything that Elijah told me yesterday."

"Meet me at home after the party." He told her as Bonnie stuck her head outside to get Katie's attention.

"Okay." She told him as she gave Bonnie a smile and held her finger up at her. "The girls are awake. I'll talk to you later." Bonnie went back inside.

"I love you." he answered back.

Katie smiled. "I love you too."

After hanging up with Damon, Katie opened the message from Elijah. _"I apologize for my behavior. I should not have kissed you back. However you should remember that because we are linked I feel every extremity you do. Forgive me?"_ with a frown down at the text Katie decided not to answer him. Instead she went back inside and filled Bonnie and Caroline in on everything that Elijah had told her the day before.

* * *

"So tell me about this witchy plan you've been cooking up." Caroline prompted Bonnie where the three of them sat at a table in the grill.

"We still don't know the extent of what Elijah's up to. I mean, we know that he wants to kill Klaus, but we don't know how. He purposely didn't tell Katie that part, right?" Bonnie asked Katie.

"Right." Katie answered with a nod.

"So I'm gonna ask Luka to tell me what he knows." Bonnie finished.

"And he's not gonna tell you anything." Caroline replied.

"I didn't say he was gonna have a choice." Bonnie told them with a smile.

Caroline perked up when she saw Matt and waved at him, but he blew her off. "What was that about?" Bonnie asked.

"I don't know. I thought we were…" Caroline said then looked down at her hands on the table clearly hurt. "I don't know."

"So how are you going to get him to talk?" Katie asked changing the subject getting a small thank you smile from Caroline.

"Consider it the witch version of a roofie. I'll put it in his coffee then when he passes out well take him somewhere we won't be interrupted then I'll pretty much hypnotize him and make him talk." Bonnie explained.

"We can use my house." Katie offered. "I've compelled the one nosy neighbor I have to mind her own business."

"Perfect." Caroline said with a smile.

Eventually Luka came into the grill and started playing pool. "You're on Bon." Katie told her as Bonnie stood from the table.

She ordered two iced coffees and roofied Luka's. Caroline and Katie were casually watching when Jeremy walked up. "How's it going?"

"Jeremy, long time no see. What are you doin' here?" Katie greeted him feeling like she hadn't seen him in forever.

"Bonnie called. I wanted to help." He said as he leaned on the table and glanced over at Bonnie and Luka. "How's it goin'?"

"She's fishing and he's biting." Katie answered.

"She's giving him the sex smile." Caroline added.

"Alright, Caroline. I get it." Jeremy told her with an eye roll.

When Jeremy looked back at Bonnie, Katie and Caroline shared at look. "Does he like her?" Katie mouthed and Caroline arched a brow and shrugged.

When Bonnie looked back at the three of them they headed over to her. Jeremy looped Luka's arm around his shoulder and started helping him walk to the back exit. "What kind of witch roofie was that?" Jeremy asked with a grunt from Luka's weight.

"A strong one." Bonnie answered sounding a little cocky.

They put him in Katie's car that she had moved outback and brought him to her house. Katie pushed the coffee table aside and they set Luka in the middle of the area rug. Per Bonnie's instruction Katie gathered all the candles she could find and placed them around the room. "I'll go get a lighter." Katie said as she headed back to the kitchen.

"I got it." Bonnie stopped her as the candles lit.

"Never gonna get used to that." Jeremy said as he looked around at the candles.

"Oh, come on. That's pretty hot and you know it." Caroline told Jeremy with a smile and Jeremy tilted his head to the side as if to agree.

"I need a bowl of water." Bonnie told Jeremy who went to the kitchen to get it. As soon as he was out of earshot Bonnie looked at Caroline. "Okay, what was that? It's hot?" she asked.

"He's so crushing on you." Caroline told Bonnie as she moved to sit on the other side of Luka across from Bonnie.

"Yeah I'm with Caroline on this one." Katie said when Bonnie looked at her.

"So?" Bonnie asked.

"So?" Caroline mimicked. "Would you rather be with traitor warlock over here?"

"I'm not _into_ Luka." Bonnie pointed out as Katie sat down on the couch. "It's just, you know, he understood me, and he was new…and different."

"And you've know Jeremy since forever and you only see him one way, as Elena's brother. But you're a witch and Katie and I are vampires. You know it's not like we're in any position-" Caroline was interrupted my Bonnie.

"To be picky." Bonnie finished.

Caroline laughed. "No, to…judge."

Katie was about to add that now that Jeremy wasn't doing drugs and wearing black fingernail polish he was kind of hot, but he walked into the room.

Bonnie dipped her fingertips into the bowl of water then placed them on Luka's head. After a few minutes Caroline asked, "How long is this gonna take?"

"I don't know, he's fighting me." Bonnie answered.

"Please stop. Please." Luka begged, but Bonnie finally got him to stop fighting her.

"Why are you working with Elijah?" Bonnie asked him.

"Klaus. We both want him dead." Luka answered quietly.

"You want to kill Klaus too. Why?" Bonnie asked with her eyes closed as she kept her hands on Luka's head.

"Because he has her and we have to get her away from him." Luka answered making everyone in the room look at him with confusion.

"Who are you talking about?" Bonnie asked what they were all thinking.

"My sister." Luka answered.

"Why does he have her?" Bonnie asked.

"He's searching for a way to undo the curse without the doppelganger. He's forced generations of witches to help him for centuries."

"What has Elijah promised you?" Bonnie asked.

"If we help Elijah kill Klaus he's promised to return her to us." Luka answered.

"And how do you kill Klaus?" Bonnie asked. "How do you kill and original vampire?"

Luka started fighting Bonnie again as he lifted his head from the floor and shook his head no. "He'll kill me if I tell you. Don't make me." Luka begged.

"I won't let him." Katie got down on the floor beside Luka. "Please, tell us and I'll take full blame for this."

"It's okay Bonnie. We can find another way." Jeremy spoke up disagreeing with Katie.

"No." Bonnie told him as she closed her eyes and got Luka back under her spell. How will you kill Klaus?"

"After the sacrifice, Klaus will be vulnerable, weak. It's our only chance." Luka answered.

"_After_ the sacrifice?" Caroline and Katie asked at the same time.

"What do you mean, after?" Bonnie asked Luka.

"Klaus will be vulnerable." Luka answered again.

"But Elena will be dead." Bonnie replied.

"Yes." Luka confirmed. "Elena has to die."

Katie and Caroline stared at Luka with a combination of anger and sadness. "No." Jeremy said as he shook his head.

"Over my dead body." Katie said as she stood up and grabbed her cell phone, wallet and car keys off the coffee table.

"Where are you going?" Caroline asked with wide eyes.

"To get answers from the man himself." She answered as she headed for the door. "Lock up when you're done." She told them as she walked out the door and shut it behind her.

She dialed Elijah's number as she got into her car and cranked it. "Hello, Katie." He answered formally.

"Hi." She replied snippily.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked.

"We need to talk. Where are you?" she asked.

"I am in the boarding house, standing right across from your boyfriend. Would you like to meet me here?" he asked.

"Yes." She answered then hung up and tossed her phone into the passenger seat.

* * *

When she got to the boarding house she found Damon and Elijah in the library. Damon had blood all over his neck and looked a little weak so she ignored Elijah and went straight to him. "What happened?" she asked pulling his collared shirt aside to look at his neck.

"The wolves found out about the sun and moon curse. They thought we had the moonstone and they're still pissed at me for killing Mason." He answered as he put his hands on her hips and looked into her worried eyes. She cupped his cheeks in her hands and looked at him with questioning eyes. "I'm fine." She kissed him then turned and walked over to Elijah who didn't look happy to see them canoodling.

"Damon, will you give us a minute?" She asked while staring at Elijah.

"Yep." He answered, popping the p at the end of the word in true Damon style, then walked out of the study.

"You're planning on letting Elena get sacrificed…?" she asked as she walked over to stand at the opposite end of the couch, purposely using it to keep them from being too close to each other. "You're planning on letting Klaus go through with the ritual?" Elijah tapped the back of the couch in thought. "Don't try to deny it."

"I was not planning on denying it." he told her with a little squint of his eyes. "How did you-"

"It doesn't matter. Just answer the question please." She told him trying, despite the pull she always felt around him, to stay mad at him.

"Yes. In order for Klaus to be susceptible to anything that could kill him, Elena has to die." He answered looking at his fingers that still fiddled with the back of the couch.

"I knew you were keeping things from me, but I didn't think it was as bad as you letting my friend die." She told him, her disappointment clear in her voice.

"Where did you get your information from?" he asked looking up from his hands on the couch to her.

"If I tell you, you have to promise not to get mad." She told him and he just looked at her, thinking about if he should promise her or not.

"I promise." He told her with a nod.

"Luka, we didn't exactly give him a choice. So it wasn't his fault he told us that you plan on killing Klaus _after _the sacrifice because he'll be weak." She answered. "I need to know _exactly_ what you're planning because one way or another we are going to figure it out. We will not…let…Elena…die. It's not an option."

"Elena will be fine." He told her with a smug smirk.

"How will she be fine if Klaus kills her!?" Katie yelled at him.

He whooshed around the couch and cupped her face in his hands. "I know how to save her." he told her looking deep in her eyes.

She knocked his hands off of her face and glared at him. "Why didn't you tell me that from the beginning? Why all the secrets?"

"Because the more people that know my plan, the higher the risk of Niklaus finding out and stopping me." He answered. "You will find out everything you need to know in time." Katie just glared at him. "As long as you are with him I can not trust you." he told her as she looked into her eyes with a squint. "But you can trust me."

"No, I can't." Katie argued with an aggravated shake of her head. "There are multiple sides to every war. Right now you are on one side and I'm on another." the more she spoke the more she started talking with her hands. "Until we're on the same side I can't trust you either." She told him making him frown at her. "I'm starving. You can see yourself out." She pointed to the front door as she walked away. Elijah watched her disappear through one of the many archways in that house that led to who knows where before he walked away.

* * *

Katie was getting a blood bag out of the basement when her phone started ringing and she pulled it out of her back pocket to see Tyler's name on the screen. With a confused frown she answered it. "Hey, Katie, can we meet somewhere? We need to talk."

"Yeah." She answered, "We can meet at my house."

"Okay, see you there." He replied awkwardly.

"Yeah. See you there." She answered back then hung up.

She drank her blood bag on her way to Damon's room where she found him in the shower. "You gonna join me?" he asked when he saw her watching him.

"I would love to, but Tyler called. He wants to talk." She answered and Damon stuck his head out from behind the glass with a curious frown. "So I'm going to meet him at my house." She told him as she walked over and leaned on the glass.

He growled in aggravation. "Fine, but make it fast because I _really_ need you." He told her with a pout then stuck his bottom lip out.

Katie laughed. "I'll make it quick, I promise." She kissed him on the lips then left.

* * *

Tyler was waiting on her front porch swing, his hands clasped together in front of him where he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. When he saw her walk up the porch he sat up straight. "Hey." She said awkwardly as she sat down next to him.

"Hey." He answered back. "So… I figured there were a few lose ends we should tie up before I leave town."

"You're leaving?" Katie asked with a look at him across her shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm going to go with Jules, figure out this whole werewolf thing." he answered.

She turned in the swing and pulled her feet up beside her. "Tyler, before anything else is said between us there's something you need to know." he gave her a look that told her to keep going. "I loved you." she blinked fast, holding back tears. "You were…everything I wanted. You're sweet, thoughtful, caring…I had a crush on you since jr. high." She laughed as a tear slipped and he smiled and turned his eyes down. "But after I turned…after we lost the baby…everything changed."

"I get it." he told her with a nod. "We don't make since anymore." He told her and she shrugged. "When you broke up with me…I was mad…when I found out you were a vampire, knew about me being a werewolf and didn't tell me…I was livid." He told her and she felt a tear slip down her face. "Then I realized that I was mad…because I loved you too."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about me I wanted to be there for you, I did, but I'm not as brave as Caroline. I didn't want to risk getting bitten. I am… a coward." She told him as she moved her legs around in front of her and hugged her knees.

"I get it and you're forgiven." he told her as he stood up and turned to her so she stood up too. "I just didn't want to leave with you thinking I'm still mad at you…I'm not."

"Thank you." she told him with a small smile. "You didn't have to talk to me before you left. After how I treated you I would've understood if you never spoke to me again, but I'm glad you did. So…friends?" she asked awkwardly as she held her arms open for a hug.

Tyler laughed and hugged her. "Friends."

They let go of each other and he headed for the jeep that had been parked across the street from Katie's house. "Good luck." Katie called as he climbed into the vehicle and he gave her a wave as they drove off.

When she got back to the boarding house she immersed herself in Damon. Being together was the only thing getting them through the hard days without going completely insane. He was always what she needed at the end of the day.

* * *

The next day Katie and Damon slid into a booth at the grill across from Alaric. "So you two are together again?" Alaric asked with a disbelieving look.

"Yep." Damon answered as he wrapped his arm around Katie's shoulders.

"This is too weird." Alaric scoffed causing Katie to smile and shake her head at them.

"So other than a lecture on the history of Mystic Falls did you get anything out of Elijah?" Damon asked Alaric to change the subject. Katie would've preferred to talk about anything else.

"No, it was boring." He said with a sigh. "Of course Jenna thinks he's charming."

"You sound a bit jealous." Damon told Alaric then looked over to see Katie smile and tilted her head to the side as if she agreed with Jenna. "What was that?" Damon asked with a point to her face.

"Elijah _is_ really charming." Katie pointed out getting a glare from Damon.

"Now who's jealous?" Alaric pointed out with a laugh.

"I'm sorry. I'm a bit unintentionally biased when it comes to him." Katie shrugged. "How are we going to get information out of Elijah?"

"I just need the right opportunity." Damon sighed with a frown. "Ah, there's Jenna with her new boyfriend." Damon perked up with a look at the front door that Jenna and Elijah had just walked through. "Hey." Damon waved at them with a smile.

"Hey guys." Jenna gave them a smile as she headed over, Elijah trailing behind.

"So I hear you two had quiet a meeting of historical minds today." Damon prompted.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Jenna replied with a look across her shoulder at Elijah who smiled at Damon then Katie who smiled back and she couldn't tell if she smiled back because of the way Elijah always made her feel or if she was just being polite.

"Well as much as I'd like to continue this, I've got papers to grade." Alaric said as he stood up.

"Have you gotten a chance to grade my make up essay?" Katie asked, stalling to think of a way she could give Damon the opportunity he needed to talk to Elijah.

"I did and if I'm being honest it wasn't your best work." He told her and she sank back a bit, now worried that she would never get back to her old self and she'd have to work even harder if she still wanted to remain in the top of her class before the school year was over, summer would be upon them soon. "But given the circumstances I understand why."

"I have an idea." Katie said as if a light bulb went off in her head.

"I'm sure it's brilliant." Damon told her as he looked across his shoulder at her with a closed lipped smile. "Why don't we continue this at the boarding house?" she motioned around at the people standing around the table. "I'll cook."

"You cook?" Damon, Jenna and Elijah asked at the same time.

"Jeeze, do I come off as someone who would be a crappy cook?" she asked with a look at the three of them.

"Well, if memory serves you tend to burn everything." Elijah spoke up with a smirk.

"You two know each other?" Jenna asked with a confused smile.

"He was a friend of my fathers." Katie spoke up with a lie before anyone else could. "So what do you guys say? Tonight, say…six-thirty."

"I'm free." Jenna said at the same time Alaric said, "I don't know if tonight works-"

Knowing that Jenna would get Alaric to come Katie and Damon looked at Elijah. "It would be a pleasure."

* * *

After they ate lunch Katie headed to the grocery store and bought everything needed to make fresh garden salad, three cheese stuffed shells and mini cheesecakes. After checking out she headed to the boarding house to find it empty. So she started cooking. The main course was in the oven when Damon came in. "Why didn't you tell me you could cook?" he asked as he wrapped his arms around her from behind where she stood at the counter cutting up cucumbers for the salad.

"Because you never asked and it's not exactly something I like to do." She told him as she scooped up the cucumber slices off the cutting board with the knife and deposited them into the bowl with the lettuce.

"It smells good." He told her then started kissing her neck. "So why don't you like to cook?" he asked looking around the kitchen at the mess she had made.

"My grandfather forced me to learn how to cook and do everything a proper lady should." She answered as she started halving the cherry tomatoes.

"Thank you for doing this. You didn't have to." He told her as he rested his chin on her shoulder.

"You needed an opportunity to pry info out of Elijah and I gave you one." She said with a shrug.

"Have I told you lately how amazing you are?" he asked in his cute pouty voice making her smile.

"No." she answered in a laugh.

"Well you are and I don't deserve you." he told her before someone knocked on the door. "Is it Elijah?"

"I can't feel him, no." she told him as she dumped the tomatoes into the salad bowl. Damon went and answered the door, letting Jenna and Alaric inside.

* * *

She was setting the table with Jenna's help when she overheard Damon and Alaric talking in the study. "It's just a fact finding mission. It's totally harmless." She heard Damon.

"Just a fact finding mission?" Alaric asked not believing Damon.

"I'll be right back." Katie told Jenna and headed to the study.

"Listen, no sneak attacks, no surprise plans, nothing that's going to put Jenna in harms way. Okay?" Alaric told Damon as Katie stepped into the doorway.

"What he said." She told Damon with a point at Alaric as she walked down the steps and over to Damon. "And I mean it. If you are up to something, tell me about it right now."

"I'm gonna…go help Jenna with something." Alaric dismissed himself as Katie crossed her arms and looked at Damon with serious eyes.

"I'm not up to anything." He told her with an innocent smile and a shrug that only Damon could make look cute.

"I call bullshit." She told him with a suspicious look.

"I promise you. All I want to do is talk to him." he told her as he put his hands on her hips and pulled her into him. She kept her arms crossed. "Trust me."

"Fine." She said as she dropped her arms and placed her hands over his on her hips. "I have to go check on the desserts."

"Ooh. What are we having for dessert?" he asked as she pushed his hands off of her.

"It's a surprise, but I'm sure you can guess it's nothing chocolate." She told him as she walked away.

Katie was on her way to the kitchen when someone knocked on the door so she headed over and answered it revealing John Gilbert who let himself in. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Jenna mentioned she was coming to a dinner party for Elijah. I decided I couldn't miss out on all the fun and games." He replied as Alaric and Damon walked up.

"I'm hosting, you're not invited, leave before I make you leave." Katie told him getting an approving look from Damon.

"There are not going to be any games tonight John. It's just a friendly dinner party." Alaric told him as Katie shut the door knowing that she couldn't force him to leave as long as Jenna was around.

"Fine, but you don't get dessert. I only made enough for the _invited_ guests." Katie told him as she walked past him purposely hitting his shoulder hard with hers as she did.

Katie was setting the salad in the center of the dining table when she felt Elijah near and a second later they heard the knock on the door. Damon went to answer it and Katie trained her ears on them. "Good evening." Elijah greeted him.

"Thank you for coming. Please, come in." Damon told him sounding overly polite.

"Just one moment." She got a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Can I just say that if you have less than honorable intentions about how this evening is going to proceed, I suggest you reconsider."

"No, nothing dishonorable." Damon answered as Katie headed their way in hopes of defusing the tension. "Just getting to know you."

"Hmm. Well, that's good because, you know, although Elena and I have this deal," Katie stopped just out of their sight, "if you so much as make a move to cross me, I'll kill you and I'll kill everyone in this house besides Katie. Are we clear?"

"If you kill me Katie will never have anything to do with you." Damon answered not knowing Katie was standing right around the corner.

"I give her back her memories and she will forget all about you." Elijah threatened.

"Boys." Katie drawled as she stepped out from around the corner and walked over to them. "Play nice, please."

"Katie, you look beautiful as always." Elijah told her, taking in her black sequined spaghetti strap tank top and dark wash jeans as he walked over and placed his hand on her bare shoulder as he kissed her cheek in greeting. Damon didn't miss the way her eyes fluttered at Elijah's touch or the aggravated look that followed.

Damon walked up to her and wrapped his arm around her waist as they headed to the dining room.

* * *

The six people sat around the dining table with John at one end and Damon at the other. Jenna and Katie sat on one side with Katie next to Damon while Elijah sat across from her and Alaric sat across from Jenna.

"I hate to break it to you Damon, but according to Elijah, your family is so not a founder of this town." Jenna said as she grabbed the bottle of wine out of the ice bucket in the center of the table and poured more into her glass.

"Hmm, do tell." Damon said as if he really wasn't interested.

"Well as I mentioned to Jenna earlier, a faction of settlers migrated from Salem after the witch trials in the 1690's." Elijah informed them and Katie couldn't help but wonder if it was because of her bond with him or if she really did like it, but she found that she enjoyed listening to him talk. "Over the next hundred years they developed this community where they could feel safe from persecution."

"Because they were witches." Jenna whispered mysteriously.

"I'd believe it." Katie spoke up getting an eye roll from Jenna.

"You would." Jenna laughed making everyone smile.

"Hey, don't hate on my open mind." Katie defended herself then turned her eyes to Elijah. "What else do you know about this town that they don't teach us in school?" she asked then took a bite of the pasta on her plate.

"Well the lore says that there was a wave anti-witch hysteria. It broke out in the neighboring settlement. So these witches were rounded up. They were tied to stakes in a field together and, uh, burned. Some say you could hear the screams from miles around as they were consumed by the fire."

"I wouldn't repeat this to the historical society." Jenna laughed with a look at Katie who just smiled, because she wouldn't be surprised if the historical society already knew.

"It's starting to sound a little like a ghost story to me." John spoke up making everyone look at him with a why-are-you-talking look.

"So why do you want to know the location of these alleged massacres?" Damon asked then took a drink of his wine.

"You know…" Elijah shrugged. "A healthy historian's curiosity, of course." He answered with a smile at Katie then Damon. Katie found herself liking his smile and she once again pushed the thought aside. As the dinner conversation drug on Katie focused on her food and keeping her mouth shut. She was taking the last bite of her pasta when she felt someone's foot brush against hers. She thought it was just an accident, but then it happened again and it was clear that it was Elijah, attempting to pay footsie with her. Butterflies stirred in her stomach as he brushed his shoe over the side of her leg. She gave him a glare as she pulled her feet back, tucking them under her chair. He smirked at her then turned his attention back to the conversation.

When everyone was finished with dinner Damon asked, "Would anyone care for some cognac? I have a bottle I've been saving for ages." Damon asked as he stood up.

"None for me thanks. Nine bottles of wine is my limit." Alaric answered as he stood up.

"Why don't you gentleman go have drinks in the study while Jenna and I clear?" Katie asked with a polite smile at the men in the room as she stood from the table.

"I have to say, the food was surprisingly not burnt. It was almost as wonderful as the company." Elijah told Katie with a smile as everyone else stood up.

Katie laughed getting a look from Damon. "Thank you."

She started picking up the dishes as Damon and Elijah headed to the study. Alaric hung back walked around the table to Jenna. "Here, put me to work." He told Jenna holding his hands out for the dishes.

"Um, I got it." she blew him off.

"Hey, Jenna, are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Rick." She told him as she and Katie headed to the kitchen past John.

The girls were putting the dishes in the sink when Alaric came in looking like something bad was about to happen. "Katie, can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked and Katie walked over to him and out of earshot of Jenna. "You need to get Damon away from Elijah, now."

"Why?" she asked as they headed to the study.

"I can't tell you right now." He told her making her roll her eyes at him. "Jjust do me a favor and get him out of there."

"Fine." She sighed not happy about having to spend alone time with Elijah or the fact that Damon lied to her and clearly had a plan of some kind tonight. Alaric walked into the study while Katie stopped in the doorway. "Dessert is almost ready." She announced then held her hand out to Elijah and smile. "Can I steal you away from the guys for a minute?" she asked and he smiled an almost cocky smile as he walked over to her and took her hand giving her a playful twirl before they walked into the hallway. "Footsie, really?" she asked as she held onto his arm as they slowly walked to the dining room. Once again butterflies took over her stomach as she looked across her shoulder at the profile of his face.

He smiled, "I could not resist." He admitted as he looked over at her with a close lipped smile.

"I didn't take you for the type to flirt by playing games like footsie." She told him as they got close to the dining room.

"That is because you do not remember how fun I can be." He told her with a challenging smirk.

"If that is your way of trying to get me to remember another random memory it's not working." She told him with a shake of her head. He was about to say something when the alarm on her phone started going off. "That is the timer for the desert." She told him as she rushed off to the kitchen eager to get away from him.

She and Jenna were putting the topping on the mini cheesecakes, when a sharp splitting pain shot through her chest causing her to scream out in pain and fall to the floor on her hands and knees at the same time she heard Elijah yell out. Fortunately Jenna couldn't hear Elijah over Katie and rushed to her side. "Oh my god, Katie, are you okay?" she asked placing a hand on Katie's back.

"Yeah." Katie panted as the pain faded and she stood up.

Damon came into the room with a worried look on his face. "Did I hear you scream?" he asked.

Katie just glared at him then looked at Jenna. "Will you finish these up? I might have to go home." she asked and Jenna nodded.

Katie ignored Damon and walked into the dining room to see Elijah slumped in the chair, his skin blue with protruding veins. She turned to Damon with a death glare. "I can explain." He told her seeing the anger in her eyes.

"Don't bother." She told him as she pushed past him. As she headed to her room she heard Alaric telling Damon to get Elijah out of there before Jenna came out of the kitchen and saw him. When she got to her room she grabbed her car keys off of the desk. Damon was standing in the doorway, blocking her way out. "Get out of my way Damon." She told him flatly not looking him in the eyes.

"Please let me explain." He told her with pleading eyes.

"No." she told him finally looking him in the eyes as she pointed at him. "I can't talk to you right now and I don't want to. So please, move." Damon reluctantly stepped aside and let her leave.

* * *

She had just unlocked her front door when she felt a crippling pain shoot through her head stopping her in her tracks. She sank to her knees as the pain intensified until she eventually passed out.

**A/N: **I don't know how I feel about this chapter...writers block is really messing with me.


	23. Chapter 23

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 23**

"What are you going to do to me?" Katie asked angrily from the chair that she was tied to with vervain soaked ropes. Jonas, Luka's father, brought her to an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere.

"Elijah told me that you once had a mental block put up on your old memories." Jonas told her as he looked at the grimoire in his hands. I'm going to attempt to do the opposite."

"Attempt?" Katie asked with wide eyes, afraid of what would happen to her mind if he failed.

"Don't worry. Elijah made it very clear that I am not to harm you." He told her and she looked down at the bindings on her wrists then back at him. "Mentally."

"Elijah is dead, Alaric killed him. Why are you doing this?" she asked, confused.

"Alaric also removed the dagger after stabbing him. I'm guessing your boyfriend didn't know it has to stay in for Elijah to stay dead. He woke up shortly after and came to me. I located you and Elena. He went after Elena. I am taking care of you." he answered.

She groaned and let her head fall back. "I wouldn't call giving me memories I don't want taking care of me."

"I'm sorry you don't want them, but I can't go against Elijah." He informed her.

Katie lifted her head back up and rolled her eyes. "You want your daughter back, I get it." She sighed. "But I am begging you. Do not do this to me."

"Let's just get this over with." Jonas walked over holding the grimoire in one hand as he placed the other on her forehead. He started chanting something that sounded similar to what she remembered Sheila chanting, but she wasn't able to think about it before memories from another time started flooding her head sending a searing pain through her temples.

She screamed out, fighting the ropes that bound her. "Please, please stop. It hurts, please!" She screamed, but Jonas kept going.

**~1827~**

"Ronan has asked for your hand in marriage." Hannah's father, a harsh and abusive man, told her from where he sat behind his desk. "In two weeks you shall be his wife."

"But I do not love Ronan." Eighteen year old Hannah argued earning a scoff from her red headed father, his mean, green eyes framed by bushy eyebrows glared down at her.

"Love is for children and fools." He scolded her. "Ronan comes from a respected family and for some reason he has taken a liking to you." He informed her making her frown deepen. "I have no earthly idea why. It's not as if you are a rare beauty to be sought after." Hannah, had she not been accustomed to such insults, would have felt a punch in the gut from his statement. "You will marry him."

"I have no say in the matter?" She asked, standing from the chair across from his desk in anger. "It is my hand he asks for. I should have the right to accept or reject him."

Her insolence caused her father to stand from the chair and backhand her across the cheek before he grabbed her chin in his strong hand and got in her face. "Ronan may very well be the only chance you have to marry. I can not for the life of me see why he would want to wed an atrocious, ill mannered woman such as you. I refuse you have you under my roof for the rest of my life." He practically threw her away from him with a growl. "You will marry him."

Later that night she caught her mother alone in her bedroom, sitting in a chair at a vanity combing her wavy brown hair. "You know you are not allowed in here, Hannah." Her mother chided her not looking at her.

"Mother, please, I do not want to marry Ronan." Hannah pleaded with her beautiful mother.

"What is so bad about him?" Her mother asked dismissively. "He is handsome and he likes you."

"But I do not love him, Mother." Hannah argued.

"Pish posh." Her mother answered with a shrug.

"Mother, please, talk father out of making me marry him." Hannah begged.

"Get out of here before your father catches you." Her mother told her with a wave of her hand to the door. "No sense in both of us catching a beating."

Instead of going to her own room she slid into bed with her sister. "So you are to marry Ronan?" her fifteen year old sister asked as they both stared out into the darkness.

"Yes." Hanna answered sadly.

"I know you do not love him, but you are lucky." Her sister told her, the innocence in her young voice brought tears to Hannah's eyes. "He is nice, unlike father. You will be getting out of here. You will be free."

"Do you know what men expect of their wives?" Hannah asked knowing she shouldn't taint her sister's innocence with talk of consummating a marriage.

"You will have to have sex with him." she answered shocking Hannah with her knowledge. "Think about it sister. Is having sex really worse than thrashings from a cat of nine tails?"

"It is if I do not love him and do not want to be with him." Katie answered, getting sick to her stomach at the thought of her wedding night.

"Do you love another?" her sister asked and Hannah shook her head before realizing that her sister couldn't see her in their dark room.

"No. I simply wish to die an old maid." She answered with a lie. What she really wished for was a love like no other. She longed for butterflies, adventure, a spark that would ignite something in her and consume her.

"Perhaps you will grow to love him." her sister suggested sounding hopeful.

Tears silently slipped down Hannah's cheeks, soaking into her bright curls. "Perhaps."

Hannah's sister had been right. She did grow to love Ronan and they lived a comfortable life together away from her father and mother. However the love they shared was that of friends and didn't hold a flame to the life that Katie longed for. A year after they married Hannah gave birth to their son, her only source of true joy. A year after Jonah was born, Hannah's sister married Ronan's younger brother. However yellow fever took him from her leaving her a childless widow. Hannah and Ronan opened their doors to her to keep her from returning to their abusive father.

**~1835~**

Ronan took a job on a trade ship, leaving Hannah and seven year old Jonah alone. Three months after his departure, Elijah found them in the forest near her house.

**~1836~**

Jonah sat at the head of the table since it was his eighth birthday, Elijah and Hannah sitting on each side of him, eating the dinner of deer stew and burned biscuits. Elijah had been with them for eight months. "Fiona could have directed me to someone who could cook." He told her with a smirk at the burned biscuit he held in his hand, examining it for any bite that wasn't charred.

"I don't think anyone else would have accepted you." Hannah countered. "Besides, it is not like you actually need food to survive." She pointed out with a smirk of her own.

"True." He told her as he set the biscuit back in the bowl.

"Mother may I be excused?" Jonah asked eager to pay with his new toys.

"Yes, you may." Hannah told him and the boy bounced down from his chair and over to the fireplace to play quietly.

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to his father?" Elijah asked watching Jonah play.

"He uh…" Hannah started twisting her plain gold band. "He left on a trade ship a year ago and has yet to return." She told him as she continued to play with her ring as she looked over at Jonah and noticed the fire was getting low and the temperature in the cabin was dropping. "I need to get more fire wood." She announced as she stood from the table and headed to the door.

"I will get it." he offered as he stood.

"No, I…I could use the fresh air." She told him then went outside. She was stacking logs in her arms when she saw them…glowing yellow eyes that caused her heart to stop. The last time she had seen them was when her sister was attacked and killed by a wolf.

Elijah was sitting at the dinner table, finishing his stew when he heard Hannah's ear piercing scream. "Stay inside." He told Jonah as she ran out to the wood pile to see Hannah on the ground as a wolf tore into her shoulder.

"Elijah!" she screamed as he sped over and grabbed the wolf. It bit him on the arm as he threw it off of Hannah. It ran off into the woods.

With the wolf gone, Elijah kneeled down next to her, wrapped his arm around her back and lifted her up as he bit his wrist and placed it to her lips. "Drink, please." He told her with fear in his eyes. Hannah did as told and swallowed the blood that filled her mouth. He swept her wild curls to the side and watched as the massive spot of mangled flesh healed leaving just a bloody spot behind. Still shaking in fear she stared at him with tears on her eyes. As relief washed over him he pulled her into him. "You are okay. You are safe." he sighed as she swayed her side to side as if she were a frightened child. Still slightly in shock Hannah wrapped her arms around his neck and he picked her up standing her on her feet again. "Let's get you inside." he wrapped his arm around her waist and helped her to the cabin.

He left her in her bedroom to get cleaned up while he got more wood to keep them warm. When he got back inside and started stoking the fire back to life Jonah asked, "Is mother okay?"

"Yes, she will be fine." He told the young boy as she finished with the fire. "For now it is time you went to sleep." He motioned over to the small bed in the corner of the living area.

"Can I play with my toys just a little bit longer?" the boy begged, but stood from the floor as he did.

"Your toys will still be there in the morning." Elijah told him and the boy set the toys down then went to his bed. Elijah followed him, and tucked him in the way Hannah did every night.

"I'm worried about mother." Jonah told Elijah as he pulled the covers up to the boys chin.

"She will be fine, she's just scared of the wolves." Elijah assured him.

"That is not why I am worried." Jonah told Elijah as he stood up. "I hear her crying when she thinks I'm asleep."

"I am sure she just misses your father." He replied and the young boy shook his head no.

"She cried even before father left." The boy's words made Elijah frown and looked at Hannah's bedroom door.

"You have no reason to worry. Now," he pulled the covers up a little higher and patted Jonah's shoulder, "go to sleep."

"Yes, sir." Jonah replied then closed his eyes.

Elijah blew out the oil lamp then went to Hannah's door and knocked. She opened it and gave him a questioning look as she watched him tap absentmindedly on the doorframe. "I just wanted to make sure you are okay." He told her then looked up from the doorframe to meet her eyes. She jerked her head for him to come in and stepped aside. He came in and she closed the door behind him. "I am okay. Thank you for healing me." She told him as she set down on her bed and motioned him to the chair that sat at her roll top desk.

"You are welcome." He told her with a polite nod as he sat down and propped his elbow up on the desk.

"That wolf that attacked me...they only come around on a full moon." Hannah started. "They're not normal wolves."

"They are lycanthrope." He informed her.

"You have seen them before?" She asked with a curious head tilt.

"Yes. They are shape-shifters. On any given day they appear to be human, but they are not." Hannah had grown to love listening to him speak. "They are fast, strong, quick to heal, but on a full moon they transform into wolves. While in wolf form they only have one thing on their mind, killing whoever they come upon. However their prey of choice is vampires." Hannah watched him as he spoke becoming relaxed by the sound of his voice. "I am afraid it is my fault they found their way here and attacked you." He told her with remorseful eyes.

"It is not your fault. They have been terrorizing us since we moved here." She told him as she looked down at her hands in her lap. "I am glad you are here. If you hadn't saved me my son would be alone, left to fend for himself in this cruel world." She then noticed the bite on his arm hadn't healed and he looked pail and clammy. "That wound," she pointed at the bite that could be seen through the tear in his white sleeve, "Why has it not healed?"

"I'm afraid it will not heal for some time." She gave him a questioning look. "A lycanthrope bite is like that of a snake. It releases a toxin that is fatal to vampires." He pushed his sleeve up revealing the ugly bite.

"You are going to die?" She asked, saddened by the possibility.

"If I were any other vampire, yes, but I am an original. It will make me sick and delusional, however as soon as the venom is out of my system I will be fine."

Hannah stood and tentatively pressed her palm to his forehead. "You are burning up." She observed. "Lie on the bed. I will get a wet cloth for your head."

"You do not need to make a fuss." He told her in an attempt to stop her.

"You saved my life. The least I can do is make you more comfortable." She told him as she grabbed a cloth from under the wash basin and poured some cool water over it. She expected to see him lying on the bed when she turned around, but he was gone. "Or not." She tried to stay awake until he returned, but she ended up falling asleep.

When she woke up she went into the living area to see him asleep on his makeshift bed across the room from her son's. Jonah was awake, sitting at the dining table eating one of the biscuits. "He came in right after sun rise." The little boy informed her. "Is he okay?"

"Yes. He had a bad night is all." She told him as she set her hand on top of his head. Hearing them talking, Elijah began to stir. Katie walked over and kneeled down as she placed her hand on his shoulder making him open his eyes. "Why don't you take my bed so Jonah and I won't keep bothering you?"

"I am fine here." He told her then closed his eyes again.

Katie left her hand on his shoulder as she looked at Jonah. "Take your toys outside, fresh air will do you good."

"Yes, Mother." The boy replied and as soon as he was out of sight Hannah turned her attention back to Elijah.

"You haven't eaten since noon yesterday." She pointed out and Elijah opened his eyes again.

"I assure you I am fine." He insisted, but Hannah wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily.

"You look like death warmed over. You need rest and no one can rest well on an empty stomach. Please, eat." She told him as she held her wrist out to him.

"You are a stubborn woman." He complained as he sat up and took her arm in his hands.

"Only when I care." She told him right before he sank his teeth into her wrist making her wince in pain. When he released her she flipped her hand over to look at her wrist only to see the bite heal before her eyes. She gave him a small smile as she reached up and brushed his long wavy hair out of his face, taking in his improved color. "There, that's better." He took her hand from his head sending butterflies through her from the skin contact, as he gave her a small smile of his own. "Now," she stood up taking her hand from his as she jerked her head to the bedroom, "off to bed with you."

After the wolf incident something about their relationship changed. They saw each other in a new light, as companions instead of strangers helping each other survive. They started talking more, sharing their lives and getting to know one another. He made her smile and laugh more than anyone ever had before.

A few months later the three of them sat at the dinner table. As usual Jonah sat at the head of the table while Elijah and Hannah sat across from each other. Hannah glanced up from her dinner to the man sitting across from her to see him already looking at her. A blush warmed her cheeks as she turned her eyes back to her bowl. A few seconds later she felt his shoed foot touch hers. She thought it was an accident, but when it happened again she looked up to see him give her a small smile. She blushed again and nudged his foot with hers. "Mother, are you feeling well? Your face looks funny?" Jonah asked making both she and Elijah laughed awkwardly at the boy's observation.

Yes, Jonah, I am feeling just fine. If you are finished you may be excused." The boy nodded and hopped down out of the chair, putting his empty plate in the wash basin before he went to the coffee table that Elijah had built and started playing. "Are you ever going to tell me why you are hiding away here in the woods with a married woman and her son?" She asked as she pulled her feet out of his reach.

"Perhaps after Jonah turns in for the night." He answered quietly.

Soon they settled in the living room. She knitted while Jonah read a book and Elijah whittled away at a small piece of wood. "What time is it?" She asked then watched as Elijah looked at his pocket watch.

"Five after ten." He answered then set his whittling aside.

"Alright Jonah. Off to bed with you." She prompted earning a whine from the boy. "Don't complain." She scolded him gently as he put away his toys and headed to his bed.

"Will you sing to me?" He asked. Hannah looked at him with a sigh then to Elijah.

"I would like to hear as well." Elijah told her with a small encouraging smile.

Jonah had asked her to sing every other night, but she hadn't been able to make herself with Elijah as an audience. "What would you like to hear?"

"Father's favorite please." He answered with an excited, but sleepy smile.

"Very well." She told him with a smile as she laid her hand on him and started singing The Parting Glass. By the time the song was through Jonah was asleep. She pulled the blanket higher up around him then stood and turned to see that Elijah had fallen asleep as well. She smiled to herself as she placed her hand on his shoulder and rubbed it, waking him up gently. When he opened his eyes and they found her face, she jerked her head to her bedroom.

He got up and followed her, watching as she shut the door behind them to keep from waking Jonah. "I Apologize. I did not mean to fall asleep, but I find your singing voice to be very comforting."

"I feel the same about your voice." She admitted with a coy smile. "So please, tell me what brought you here." She sat down on her bed and he sat on the stool in the room.

"My mother was a witch, she cast the spell on all of us, making us what we are, including my father.. She died. My father…lives on, trying to kill my siblings and me. He believes us monsters that need to be removed from the world. Out of the seven children my mother bore Niklaus, Rebekah and I are all that remains." He answered not looking are her but at the wooden floor of the room. "We split up to make it harder for our father to track us."

"So that is why you are here?" She asked with a frown. "To hide from your father?" Elijah nodded still not looking at her. Even when she slipped from the bed and walked the few steps over to him he did not look up. She tentatively reached out and placed her hand on his cheek. "Elijah." She whispered his name and he finally looked up at her with a hardened reserve in his chocolate brown eyes. "I know what it is like to have a father that despises you. You are welcome here as long as you'd like."

"You are too kind." He told her as he reached up and gently grabbed her wrist talking her hand from his face as he stood up. "Good night, Hannah."

The whole next week Elijah became distant, all smiles and flirtations stopped. Growing more worried Jonah found his mother hanging the wet laundry on the line while Elijah went out hunting. "Is Mr. Mikaelson mad at us?" He asked causing Hannah to stop what she was doing to look down at the young man.

"I is only mad at me." She replied not knowing that Elijah stood off in the distance listening to them.

"Why?" He asked.

Hannah kneeled down to be eye level with the boy. "Some people...they don't like getting too familiar or too close to others. They stay away for fear of caring too much."

"Why would someone be afraid of caring?" Jonah asked, confused.

"Because when you care about another person it means that they can hurt you, even if they do not mean to." She told him.

"I don't understand." He told her with confusion in his young innocent eyes.

"You will one day." She assured him as she stood up. "But for today why don't you go milk Millie?" The boy nodded and ran off to milk the cow.

Later that night Katie laid in her plush bed, tears of loneliness slipping from her eyes, wetting the feather pillow beneath her head.

Elijah in turn laid awake listening to the rain beating down on the wooden roof of the cabin. "She's crying again." Jonah's sleepy voice pulled Elijah from his thoughts and made him tune his ears into the bedroom where he heard Hannah's quiet sobs.

"She will be okay." He told the boy as he sat up and looked into Jonah's eyes. "Go back to sleep." Compelled to do so, Jonah laid down his head and closed his eyes.

Elijah knocked softly on Hannah's door, then listened as she came to it and opened it just a crack. "Yes?" She asked keeping her eyes down cast so he couldn't see the redness of them.

"May I have a word?" Hannah nodded and stepped back letting him inside before she shut the door and turned to see him tapping the corner of her oil lit writing desk in thought. "I apologize for my behavior here of late." He said while looking down at his hand.

"I should be the one apologizing." She replied making him look up at her in confusion knit brows. "I...overstepped and made you uncomfortable... I'm sorry."

"You did not make me uncomfortable or overstep." He told her as he turned to her and tucked his hands into the pockets on his trousers. "You showed me kindness and I shut you out. I am sorry."

"It's quite alright." She assured him as she sat down on her bed.

He sat down on the chair at the desk. "I would like to get to know you better."

"What would you like to know that I haven't already told you?" She asked as she brought her feet up onto the bed and tucked them to the side.

"How did you come to know your husband?" He asked as he leaned back in the chair with an interested look on his face.

"My family and I met him at his family's barn raising. They were new to the community. My sister was taken with Ronan from the start, but he was taken with me. Said he knew from the moment his eyes landed on me that he would ask for my hand one day. So when I came of age he did." She answered as she watched him rest his arm on the desk, listening to her with a slight squint to his eyes. "I did not want to marry him. Not just because my sister fancied him, but because I didn't." She let her eyes fall to the thick cream quilt on her bed. "I know it broke my sister's heart when I told her he had asked for my hand, but she never said so. She told me I was lucky to be getting away from our parents."

"If you didn't want to marry him, why did you?" He asked with a frown.

"Because... while my father was harsh his words were true. He informed me that love is for children and fools. And I would be a fool to pass up Roman's generous offer because it would be my only one. No man would want an atrocious, unattractive, ill mannered woman like me."

"What a cruel man to speak such a way about his daughter." Elijah said with a frown.

"Like I said. I know what it is like to be despised of." She replied still looking down at her hands.

Things got quiet between them as she got lost in thought and Elijah let her words sink in. After a while he broke it. "It is late. I should turn in for the night."

He started to open the door, but Hannah spoke up, "Elijah?" He turned back to her she wanted to tell him he could have the other half of her bed, but she knew it was improper to share a bed with a man you are not married to. So instead she said, "Goodnight."

He gave her a small close lipped smile and a "goodnight." as he pulled the door open and walked out.

Winter turned to spring and with spring came school. Since they lived so far from town Jonah stayed the week days at the trading post in town with Fiona. It was an arrangement that the two women had worked out right after Ronan left. With every passing day Hannah started to lose hope that Ronan would ever return and in doing so stated letting herself develop feelings for Elijah.

One late spring night a loud sharp howl sounded causing Katie to shoot straight up in bed. "Elijah?" She called shakily hoping he was awake to hear her.

He came into her room and saw her standing beside her bed, looking right at him even though she couldn't see him. "I'm right here." He told her as he slid his arm around her waist using the fact that she was scared as an excuse to hold her close.

Her heart rate increased, at his touch that sent a spark of pleasure through her sending the butterflies in her stomach into a tizzy. When another howl sounded Katie jumped closer to Elijah out of instinct. Without thinking she pressed her hands to his chest. "Is it the lycanthrope?"

"No." He answered confidently.

"How are you so sure?" She asked. He let go of her, went to the window and pulled the curtain back. He motioned to the crescent moon with his hand held out to the side. She walked over and ducked her head to look out the window and saw the bright crescent in the clear sky. "Oh." She answered with a blush as she stood up straight and looked at him in the very dim moonlight. Not feeling like going to bed just yet she felt her way to the oil lamp and lit it, brightening the room so she could see him plainly. "I guess I look silly now don't I?" she asked as she brushed a lock of curls behind her ear.

"Perhaps just a…" he held his pointer finger and thumb up in a pinching gesture, "little." He gave her a smile that told her he was picking with her.

Hannah laughed at herself in embarrassment and scratched the back of her neck. "I…" she wanted to tell him how much she liked him and that he made her feel things she had never felt before, but the only man she had ever been with was Roman and it was simply for procreation, never for fun. She didn't know how to flirt or even how to touch a man in a way that conveyed how she was feeling. "I don't know how to say what I wish to." She told him then lifted her eyes from the floor to watch his eyes that squinted at her then relaxed when he realized what she was trying to tell him. Deciding it would be easier to show him what she wanted, rather than tell him, she closed the space between them to just a few inches and placed her hands on his chest.

Elijah could hear her heart start racing from the contact and as soon as she looked up at him through her lashes he grabbed the back of her head and pulled her into him, catching her top lip between his. The sensation his kiss sent though her to her core pulled a sound from deep within her that she had never made before, a pleasured moan. A trail of kisses left tingles along her jaw to her neck pulling another moan from her. "You are trembling." He observed as he pulled back and slid his hand that wasn't cupping the back of her head over her thin sleeping gown covered shoulder.

"I have never felt like this before." She admitted with a whisper as she opened her eyes and looked into his.

"And how do you feel?" he asked as he gazed back at her.

Her eyes dropped to her hands on his chest as she slid them up to hold each side of his neck. "Alive." She answered as she looked back up at him as a smile pulled at the corner of his lips. "You're touch sends a spark…like lightening through my skin." With a look in his eyes she'd never seen before and couldn't identify, he slid his hand down her arm and grabbed her hand off his neck to hold it in his, causing her heart to start racing again. "Do you feel it too or am I going insane?" she asked with worried eyes.

Elijah kissed the palm of her hand, making her eyes flutter then placed it back on his neck. "I feel it too." Those four words were all she needed to hear to give into what she was feeling and she threw herself into him, kissing him with a hunger that she couldn't control. In two swift movements her human eyes barely caught their night clothes were gone and he pulled her back into him. With another swift movement he grabbed her curvy waist and picked her up. She wrapped her legs around him out of instinct.

They kissed as he walked over to the edge of the bed, laid her back then stood up, slipping his hand over her neck and down her chest between her breasts. She watched his face as he admired her for a quick moment then lowered himself over her, sliding his hands into hers that were laid out to the side then brought them above her head. He attacked her neck with kisses as he sank into her, "Elijah."

Afterwards they laid in her bed, covered only by a thin sheet. His arm around her shoulders held her to his side while she stared at her hand resting on his nude chest. In that moment everything in her was relaxed and her thoughts were quiet for the first time ever. Being with Elijah was like nothing she had ever felt before and she doubted she would ever feel with anyone else. "You are quiet." Elijah pointed out and she didn't respond. "Having regrets?"

"No." she answered, but he could hear sadness in her voice.

"Hannah look at me." He told her quietly, but she couldn't. "Talk to me."

"If my life has taught me anything it's that men do not like it when a woman speaks her mind." She replied still staring at her hand on his chest.

Elijah hooked his pointer finger under her chin and eased her head up to look at him. She pushed herself up on her arm to be able to look at him comfortably. "I am not your average man and I would very much like to know what is going on in that beautiful head of yours." he cupped her cheek in his hand and her eyes slipped closed for a moment.

She took a deep breath and let it out as she opened her eyes. "I am a terrible wife." The calm she had been feeling suddenly turned into a tornado and tears started quietly slipping down her cheeks. "I should feel terrible about that, but I don't."

"Then why do you cry?" he asked as he wiped a tear with his thumb.

"I do not know." She answered honestly with a shake of her head that caused her messy curls to sway, then laid back down with her head on his shoulder.

"You told me that you married Ronan because your father told you that no other man would want an atrocious, ill mannered woman like you. Do you honestly believe these things to be true?"

She rubbed his chest absentmindedly. "Yes."

"Hannah," he rolled over, and propped his head up with his elbow and hand as he looked into her eyes, "you are the most stunningly beautiful, kind hearted, open minded woman I have ever met."

"The bad stuff is easier to believe." She replied not meeting his eyes.

As the days passed Hannah, Elijah and Jonah became a family. Hannah accepted that Ronan had either abandoned them or died at sea, and took off her wedding ring. For the first time in her life she felt true happiness. The loneliness that had kept her up at night as she cried into her pillow vanished.

Thee months later Hannah stood in Fiona's trading post. "You and Elijah are getting along well?" the dark haired woman who radiated strength and power, asked with a knowing smile.

"Yes." Hannah answered with a blush as she looked at a beautiful gown hanging on the back wall of the shop. "It would be safe to say that I have fallen in love with him" Her friend made a scandalous sound that made Hannah laugh and turn to her. "The only problem is…" she paused and looked around the shop seeing that it was empty as she walked over to Fiona who stood at the front counter, "he is immortal. I will grow old and die while he lives on."

"You could always ask him to turn you." Fiona suggested not looking up from the imported fancy shoes that she was stocking behind the counter.

"As much as I love him I don't think I could ever convince myself to be what he is." She answered with a frown. "Is there anything you could do to make me live longer?" she asked looking up from her hands that tapped the counter.

"No, but…" the bell above the door rang stopping their conversation. They waited patiently for the customer to get what he needed and leave. "I have a solution to your problem." Fiona told her about the linking spell and that as long as Elijah lived she would return to him and vice versa.

"What do you need?" Hannah asked hearing all she needed to hear to know she wanted Fiona to work her magic.

"Are you sure about this?" Fiona asked with skeptical eyes.

"I am sure." Hannah answered with a nod.

Fiona placed her hand over Hannah's heart and started speaking in another language. After a few minutes she stopped and dropped her hand. "It's done."

"Will he know what we've done?" she asked.

"He will be able to feel you call to him, as well as any extreme feelings you may have. If I were to stab you, he'd be able to feel it." she explained. "You will figure it out with time."

Elijah figured out what Fiona and Hanna had done, but they never talked about it.

**~1838~**

It was a bright spring day. Hannah attempted to hang laundry on the line, but Elijah kept teasing her dress covered sides and kissing her neck, distracting her from her work. They were so wrapped up in their toying around that they did not realize they had company until they heard someone clear their throat. Hannah laughed as they both turned to see a man on a horse, a small child on the saddle in front of him. It took Hannah a moment to recognize the man, but when she did her heart stopped and her smile faded. "Ronan?"

"Surprised to see me, Dear?" He asked with an angry look at Elijah who still stood behind her. Ronan got down off the horse then grabbed the child and walked over to her. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"What are you doing here?" She asked still in shock.

"Last I checked I live here with my wife and son. Though I see you no longer wear my ring." He glanced over at Elijah then turned his attention back to Hannah. "Where is Jonah?"

When he realized that Hannah was unable to answer Elijah spoke up. "He is staying with a friend closer to town so he may attend school regularly."

"I don't believe I was speaking to you." Ronan snapped.

"I don't believe I care who you were speaking to." Elijah snapped back as he took a challenging step toward the raven haired man holding the child on his hip.

Hannah stepped between them and looked at Elijah. "Give us a minute?"

"Of course." Elijah stepped back a few feet and motioned for them to talk.

"You have been gone so long I thought you had died." Hannah explained with a look between him and the toddler.

"My journey took longer than expected." He told her then looked down at the child on his hip. "Her mother died on the ship, just before we docked." He explained then looked back at Hannah. "I hoped we could give her a home, raise her and Jonah as brother and sister."

"You have been gone for four years. You can not tell me you expected to just pick up where we left off and raise an orphaned child together." She argued back quietly.

"I expected my wife to be faithful. Not whore herself out to another man." He told her with wide eyes.

The sharp crack of skin on skin filled the air as she backhanded him across his cheek. "I am not the weak, dutiful to a fault woman you left behind and you will not speak to me in such a manor!"

Having seen enough Elijah walked back over and looked at Ronan. "Why don't you tell her the truth?" Elijah asked making Hannah look at him as Ronan glared at both of them. Elijah wrapped his arm around Hannah's waist holding her to his side. "The child has your eyes." He looked into Ronan's eyes and compelled him. "Tell the truth."

"I met a woman...we fell in love...she got pregnant and I could not let her raise the child alone. We were going to have a second child, but she and the baby died in child birth. I did not know what to do so I came here." Hannah's eyes turned glaring and her freckled nostrils flared. Ronan blinked in confusion. "Why did I just tell you that?"

"Get off of my land." She told him as she stepped out of Elijah's arm to stand in front of Ronan. "Leave this town and never return."

Elijah looked him in the eyes and compelled him. "Do as she says."

Hannah never told Jonah that he had a half sister. Instead she let him believe for his sake that his father had died at sea. A few months after Ronan returned Klaus found Elijah and killed Hannah. Elijah left Jonah with Fiona who located Ronan and brought the young man to his father who raised him along side his half sister.

**~Present Day~**

"Please tell me you are done." Katie panted weakly.

"I am done." He told her as he untied the ropes on her wrists and ankles. "Elijah told me to take you home when I was done. Is your home with the Salvatore brothers or the house you own?" he asked as he helped her stand up and she was too weak to bother protesting.

"Bring me to my house." She answered and started walking. They were almost to the door of the warehouse when a sharp pain shot through her chest making her cry out and she would have fallen, but Jonas caught her. "No, no, no." She cried as she placed her hand over her chest knowing that Elijah was dead and would most likely stay that way this time.

"Care to explain what that was about?" Jonas asked with wide eyes.

"Elijah is dead." She panted through the pain. "Something tells me they won't make the same mistake twice." She watched as Jonas's face turned angry.


	24. Chapter 24

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 24**

_Dear Diary,_

_I thought when I got all of my memories back that I would feel different, that I would _be_ different, like who I was in my first lifee and who I am in this life would somehow mesh together and create this new person. But I feel…like me, just with more knowledge. It's weird, I thought my taste in things would change, but I like everything around me as much as I always did. I still love my friends and I still love Damon even though I'm mad at him. The one thing that has changed though, is that now I know that everything I've been feeling for Elijah is completely founded and rooted in truth, not magic. The spark that his touch always sent thought me wasn't Fiona's spell, it was what I felt before I had her cast it. Her spell just made it so that we would always be able to feel and find each other. Knowing that what I feel for Elijah is real… scares the shit out of me. I hated Damon for loving me and Katherine at the same time. Now I'm no better. It feels like my heart is a hunk of metal stuck between two high powered magnets labeled Elijah and Damon. It's ripping me apart. I know Elijah is dead and I could just manipulate my way into the boarding house and pull that dagger from his chest, but a part of me wonders if Elijah and I would even make it in this day and age. Back then I was just a lonely housewife with a son to raise. Now I'm a vampire caught in the middle of this business with Klaus trying to kill Elena to unlock his werewolf side. I don't know how strong my relationship with Elijah would be, but I know how strong mine and Damon's could be if he would just stop lying to me...and if I could let go of Elijah."_

She had put down her pen and was closing the book when she heard a knock on the door. So she threw on a robe over the comfortable clothes she had put on when she got home from school and headed down stairs. When she pulled the door open the faces of her three friends came into view. Caroline held a small pink igloo cooler with a handle out to her. "I raided Damon's stash for you."

"You're awesome." Katie laughed and took the cooler from her.

"Get dressed." Elena told her with a wrinkled nose look at the old robe she was wearing.

"We're haveing a girls night at Elena's." Bonnie added as Katie stepped aside and let the girls inside.

"We thought about having it here, no adult supervision and all, but we assumed you wouldn't have any real food in the house." Elena told her as she went into the kitchen that could be seen from the living room and opened the pantry revealing a bunch of empty shelves and a few canned goods. "Just as we thought. Plus we want to catch Aunt Jenna and real her in for some cheering up."

Katie scratched the back of her head and frowned. "No." Caroline told her with her finger pointed at Katie. "Don't try to back out of this. You have been mopey all week because of Damon and Elijah and we are not going to sit back and watch you spiral."

Katie deadpanned at her. "I'm not spiraling."

"Really?" Bonnie asked. "It's three in the afternoon and you're wearing pajamas."

"Go… get dressed." Caroline barked and pointed to the stairs. Katie rolled her eyes but obeyed. "And put on some make up!" she shook her head.

"Remind me why I let you boss me around all the time?" Katie asked from upstairs.

"Because if I didn't you would be a hopeless mess." Caroline answered then Katie heard Elena ask who she was talking to.

"Thanks for the pep talk." Katie mumbled clearly not thankful.

"Hey, you asked I answered." Caroline replied making Katie laugh.

* * *

"So are you ever going to talk about it?" Caroline asked Katie as they stood in Elena's kitchen pouring chips into bowls.

"About what?" Katie asked playing stupid.

"The fact that you're in love with two guys, one of which is a very old original vampire." Caroline said with a smirk, not looking at Katie.

"I have talked about it and I'm over it." Katie answered as she wadded up the chip bag and put it in the trash can.

"You're over it?" Caroline asked with a confused shake of her head. "You don't just get over something like that Katie."

"Can we please just…not talk about Elijah? He's dead, for all intents and purposes, and that chapter of my life is over." Katie answered getting aggravated with her friend.

"So what about Damon, are you still mad at him?" Caroline asked still prying.

Katie let out a stressed sigh and placed her hands on the counter top. "Because I know you won't stop prying until you get some kind of answer I will tell you that I don't know. I haven't spoken to him since that disaster of a dinner party."

"Don't you think you owe it to him to hear him out?" Caroline asked making Katie frown because she was right. Thankfully Elena and Bonnie walked into the kitchen saving Katie from the conversation. "So, Chinese food or pizza?" Caroline asked.

"Like you have to ask." Elena answered as she grabbed one of the bowls of chips.

"I will look it up." Caroline said as she grabbed her tablet and started to search for the nearest pizza place, but she stopped when she saw the picture of her and Matt from founder's day that was her background picture.

"I'll do it." Bonnie stepped in and gingerly took the tablet from Caroline.

"Do you believe that Jonas is being sincere?" Elena asked Bonnie as she set some cups out on the counter.

"I don't know what to believe. I think he's at a loss…not sure who to trust." Bonnie answered.

"Join the club." Elena sighed and Katie nodded.

"Well what are we going to do about this movie situation?" Caroline asked to change the subject. "What about the notebook?"

"Caroline, how many times have you seen that movie?" Elena asked making the other girls laugh.

"That is so not the point." Caroline argued.

"Well, yeah I mean…" Elena trailed off when Aunt Jenna walked into the room. "Hey…" she drew out the word awkwardly.

"What's going on?" Jenna asked as she set down the coat that she'd had over her arm.

"Girls night." Elena answered as she sat down in one of the bar stools.

"More like a pity party. We've all pretty much had a crap week." Katie elaborated.

"You've all heard about my fight with Rick." Jenna observed.

"He feels terrible." Elena told her.

"Is this some sort of disguised attempt to cheer me up?" Jenna asked.

"No," Elena answered, "this is about us girls hanging out and you know…we'll be here if you happen to want to talk or…"

"Because I am a winner at successful relationships." Caroline chipped in. Jenna and Caroline started talking about rather or not Alaric should tell Jenna about his past with Isobel. When things fell awkwardly quiet between them Caroline broke it. "You know what we need?" they all just looked at her. "Dancing. There is a band at the grill." She looked at her friends for their thoughts.

They all said they were in then looked at Katie. "When was the last time you let lose and had real fun?" Bonnie asked.

"Fine. I'm in." Katie answered with a roll of her eyes.

* * *

Katie was sitting at a table that her friends stood around, talking to Caroline about her situation with Matt, when Caroline took off her jacket and headed up on stage where the band had finished up a song. "Caroline can sing?" Katie asked Bonnie and Elena when Caroline said that she was going to sing. Bonnie and Elena watched as Caroline compelled the band to let her sing. "Whoa, she's really good." As Katie watched Caroline laying it all out on the table for Matt all she could think about was Damon and Elijah. Feeling on the verge of a panic attack Katie whooshed outside unseen by anyone.

She had been bottling it up, not really letting anyone know how screwed up she felt inside. While she had been angry at Damon for his lies and secrets and angry at Elijah for doing this to her she hadn't let herself feel the grief of losing Elijah or feel the hurt of Damon's actions. It all came out a wave of tears as she pressed her back against the side of the building in the ally way. She was so wrapped up in her grief that it took a minute for the screams coming from the building to register. She was on her way to the back entrance since people were pouring out of the front one when she heard Elena calling her name. Not knowing what was going on she sped over to where she heard Elena to see that she was with Damon. "What's going on?"

"I'll explain later." Damon told her and she just looked back and forth between him and Elena.

"Jonas is in there and he's after me." Elena told her so Katie nodded.

"What can I do to help?" Katie asked Damon with wide eyes.

"Jonas doesn't know Elena's out here with me. Katherine's in there pretending to be her. You need to get in there and make sure he stays off our trail." He told her in a rush.

"Will do." Katie nodded then ran into the building to find sparks flying off of the busted stage lights and the bar was on fire.

"Matt no!" Caroline's scream caught Katie's attention and she whooshed over to see that Jonas had stabbed him in the neck with a broken bottle. She didn't bother stopping Jonas when he ran out of the bar. Instead she went to Matt's side across from Caroline. "Caroline look at me." Caroline looked up from her hand that was pressed to Matt's neck showing the veins that were popping under her reddening eyes that mirrored her own. "Breathe. Can you do it or do I need to?"

"I can do it." she nodded so Katie jerked her head down to Matt. Caroline made a pained sound as she bit her wrist then pressed it to Matt's lips. "I've got him."

"Are you sure?" Katie asked with wide eyes and Caroline nodded as the veins disappeared. "I'm going to go make sure the building's clear."

"No, the fire's getting too big. We both need to leave now." Caroline stopped her as she picked Matt up from the ground.

"Fine, then let's get out of here." Katie said with a wave to the door

* * *

After Elena and Katherine were switched back and things calmed down, Elena texted Katie letting her know that Jonas was dead leaving Bonnie without her powers. Katie had gone home, but after thinking about it for a few minutes she decided she could no longer suffer in silence.

So with a deep breath she threw her cell phone into her shoulder bag and headed to the boarding house. She didn't bother knocking and let herself in to find Damon's bedroom door open. Katherine, wearing a black negligee and an open black robe was laying on the bed with Damon. Katie watched as Katherine crawled up Damon like a seductress out of a romance novel. Damon grabbed her face as she was attempting to kiss him and a jealous green bubble grew in the pit of Katie's stomach. "Katherine, there are six other bedrooms in this house. Go find one." he shoved her face, throwing her off of him.

Damon was about to return to the book he was reading, but his eyes found Katie as she walked into the room glaring at Katherine. "Get out."

"I turn you, and save your friend and that's the thanks I get?" Katherine asked as she slid off the bed with a cocky look on her face then crossed her arms.

Katie hadn't seen Katherine since she killed her and the anger that welled up in her was almost over whelming. But she decided to be the bigger woman and walked over to her with murderous eyes. "Okay." Katie put on a fake smile as she said, "Thank you for playing a game of switch-a-roo with Elena tonight." She let her smile fall and went back to glaring at her. "But no matter how many good deeds you do you will always be the manipulative, skeezy bitch who took my human life and killed my unborn child." Katherine cocked her head to the side as she glared back at Katie as if she were about to rip her head off. "Now get…out."

"You're lucky I like you." Katherine told her as she pointed at her then dropped her hand as she walked out of the room.

"I like jealous Katie." Damon told her as he set the book to the side and sat up.

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to not break her freaking neck?" she asked making a twisting flick motion with her hands as she walked over then flopped down on her back across the foot of his bed.

"I'd pay to see that." He commented making Katie smirk over at him, but she remembered that she was still mad at him and turned her eyes to the ceiling. "You still mad at me?" he asked, his face turning serious.

"I don't know. You kept your plan to kill Elijah a secret from me, flat out lied to me, and in doing so caused Elijah to do exactly what he warned you he would do if you crossed him. Now the first, first love is laying in your basement with a dagger in his chest and my second first love hurt me so bad that it took my friend being in danger to even be able to look at him." she looked over at him to see him frowning with wide eyes. "What do you think?"

His eyes turned apologetic. "I'm sorry." Katie pursed her lips and pulled them to the side. "I knew if I told you about the dagger you'd try to stop me from using it."

"But you didn't know that." Katie sat up and leaned back against the sturdy footboard. "You once again just… assumed, that I would react a certain way and you once again assumed wrong."

"So you wouldn't have tried to stop me from killing Elijah?" he asked doubtfully as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Before that failure of a dinner party?" she asked as she bent her knee up and rested her am on it. "No."

"And now that you have Hannah's memories?" he asked.

She dropped her eyes to the plush comforter and started picking at her cuticles, something she noticed she never did as Hannah. "Now I want to go down to that basement, pull the dagger out of him and kiss him." she looked up at him, fighting her emotions that were so much more powerful now than they were when she was human. She bit her lip and shrugged not knowing what else to say.

"So what's stopping you?" he asked with a frown and a glance at the door.

"You." she answered and her voice didn't waver, but Damon saw tears pooling in her eyes. "I heard Elijah when he told you that I'd forget all about you if he gave me my memories back. Obviously that's not true…" She looked back down at her hands and started picking at a lose string in the stitching of the comforter, "Because I'm here."

"But?" he asked and she looked up at him to see that he looked worried about what was about to come out of her mouth.

"But you and I…" she bit her lips closed and shook her head as she shrugged, "We seem to be in this cycle of I trust you…you break it, I forgive you and for about two seconds we're happy then something happens and you break my trust again. I realize that's over simplifying it and leaving out the elephant size mistake I made with Elijah, but…we are going to have to be a team, on the same page 24/7 or kiss our relationship goodbye."

"Fine, then lets get on the same page." He told her as he slid from the bed and headed for the door. "I'll go first."

"Where are you going?" she asked not moving from the bed.

"I need a drink." He answered as if it was obvious. "You comin'?"

"Yep." She hopped off the bed and followed him to the study. He poured two glasses of bourbon then handed her one. Her eyes slid shut at the taste of the amber liquid and when she opened them as she swallowed she saw Damon smirking at her. "What?"

"Have I turned you into a bourbon girl?" he asked with a look at her glass.

"Maybe." She answered coyly with a look down at her glass then back up at him. "You said you'd go first."

He had opened his mouth to say something when Katherine walked in and between them to the table of decanters they stood at. "Don't let me interrupt." She sighed as she started picking through the crystal containers. Katie gritted her teeth and looked at Damon agitatedly. He jerked his head back toward his room. Katie grabbed the decanter of bourbon out of Katherine's hand. "Um, hello." She complained as Katie walked around her.

"Um, goodbye." Katie mocked her tone. As they headed back to Damon's room Katie refilled her glass then handed the decanter to him and made herself comfortable on his bed with her back leaned against the headboard and her bare feet crossed at the ankles. "Now…shoot."

"I didn't just want Elijah dead because of the whole Elena sacrifice thing. I wanted him dead because you wanted him." he told her then took a drink.

"I told you that I didn't want him." she argued.

"And we both know that was a load of bull." He argued back making her looked down at her drink. "If you didn't want him you wouldn't have kissed him."

"So when I called you and you said that you weren't mad at me for kissing him and that you understood because you'd made mistakes too…what was that? Lie number one?" she asked with creased brows.

"No I was never mad at you. I was mad at him for having so much control over you with his stupid linking spell." He told her and she looked down at the glass in her hands that rested on her outstretched legs. "John came by after you left for the sleepover and gave me the dagger and I knew what I had to do to get you out from under his spell." He kept blaming the fact that she and Elijah were linked on Elijah.

"Damon…there's something you need to know about the linking spell." She started, staring at her drink then paused to finish it. She looked up at him as she swallowed. "Elijah isn't the one that had Fiona do the spell…I did it. He didn't know that we worked the spell until Klaus killed me. If he did know he never said anything to me about it." she slipped from the bed and refilled her glass. "So, you still not mad at me?" she asked as she walked back over to the bed but didn't sit down.

"I don't know." He answered with a far off look him his eyes. She gave him a few minutes to think about it, but when he never said anything she walked over to where the decanter was sitting on his dresser and put her glass down next to it. she was reaching for the doorknob when he whooshed over, wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into him. "I am not going to lose you because of a decision you made over a hundred years ago." He told her with a stubborn look on his face as he stared into her green eyes. "You're not walking out of this room until we are back in a good place and I've heard the words I forgive you come out of your mouth."

"You think we can accomplish that in one night?" she asked knowing it was already really late.

"Yep." He nodded and let her go.

"Okay." She grabbed her glass and took a drink. "Then I'll tell you that I'm sorry I didn't tell you exactly how much of an affect Elijah had on me before the whole…he and I making out behind a building thing."

"You said you kissed him not made out with him." he pointed at her with the hand that held his glass. "Which one was it?"

"Now you're just trying to torture us." Katie complained but Damon just rolled his eyes and gave her a look that told her to answer the question. "Fine if you want to know specifics…" she set her glass on the dresser and pressed her back against the wall and motioned him over with her finger.

He walked over with a smirk on his face that showed off one side of his smile lines. "What are you doing?"

"Answering you question." She said with a shrug as she grabbed his shirt and pulled him into her. "In a way that'll make it a little easier to swallow, so to speak." Without warning she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him into her kissing him with the same genuine hunger she had felt when kissing Elijah. After making out with him for a few seconds she jumped and his hands that were already holding her by her hips pressed her harder into the wall holding her up as she wrapped her legs around him. She tilted her head to the side giving him the subtle hint that she wanted him to kiss her neck. He took it and kissed down her jaw line to her neck. If Damon had been wearing a button up shirt she would've started unbuttoning it, but he was wearing a black t-shirt. So instead she grabbed it and pulled it over his head. She took her hands off of him and moved her arms out to the side, pressing her palms into the cold wall behind her. "This is when I stopped him, but you are more than welcome to keep going." She whispered as the bourbon and lust mixed together to create a fun cocktail within her bloodstream.

"You're drunk." He told her between kisses.

"I'm tipsy and I've missed you." She confessed as she slid her hands up his torso then held the sides of his neck. "Going a week without sex as a vampire is _excruciating_."

"We're getting off topic." He sing songed as he slid his hand down to hold her thighs making her sigh from his touch.

"Or did we find a better one?" She countered and he growled as he stepped back and let her go. "Damon." She drug out his name with whine as she watched him walk over to the bed and flop back on it, laying across the middle of it.

"You made out with him..." he complained.

"And I'm sorry." She told him as she walked over and sat down on the bed next to him. "If it makes you feel any better I hated how out of control and not myself I felt when it was happening." She told him with a hopeful tone and a cringe of a smile. He just cut his eyes over at her. "Oh and I didn't take his shirt off. I just undid a few buttons." She added.

"It doesn't." he told her then turned his eyes to the ceiling.

"Of course it doesn't." she sighed and fell back with her head at the head of the bad and her legs draped over his hips.

"We can't trust each other." He said still looking up at the ceiling with a frown on his face.

"No we can't," she replied looking up at the ceiling as she crossed her arms over her chest. "but I want to." Neither of them said anything and thanks to the fact that she had abandoned her bourbon glass she was starting to sober up and she figured he was too. She thought about why Damon killed Elijah and kept the dagger a secret from her. It was selfish of him, killing Elijah so he could keep her for himself, but she was also being selfish for wanting Elijah to stay daggered so that she could be with Damon with out the linking spell constantly putting stress on their relationship. "I forgive you."

Damon looked over at her with furrowed brows. "What?"

"I forgive you." she repeated herself.

"Are you just saying that so you can leave?" he asked and she shook her head.

"No." she told him with a small shake of her head. "And I hope you will one day forgive me for what I'm about to say." Damon sat up and looked at her with wide worried eyes. "This link…will always be there. Even if we get back together…somebody is bound to pull that dagger out and when they do the switch will get flipped and once again old feelings will resurface and we'll just end up right back where we are right now."

"So you're just gonna give up on us?" he asked with a frown.

"No…I'm saving you from a lifetime of misery…from always wondering if I'm going to be drawn back to him." she argued then slid from the bed and headed for the door.

He whooshed in front of her. "Not happening."

"Damon." She sighed and dropped her eyes to the floor.

"We're stronger than any magic link will ever be and I _refuse_ to let you walk of that door." He did his eye thing with a flick of his brows as he said the word refuse.

"So what?" she asked with a shrug of her shoulders. "We just forgive each other, get back together and pretend that we trust each other?"

"No. We get back together and learn to trust each other." he told her with eyes that bore into hers. "Because I'll be damned if I'm going to lose this." He grabbed the back of her head and pressed his lips to hers, catching her bottom lip between his.

She knew it would be pointless to try to walk away from Damon. No matter how dysfunctional they were, they kept ending up together. So she jumped and wrapped her legs around him. He held her face in his hands, kissing her as he carried her over to his bed and laid her down.

* * *

"So did I miss anything in my week of moping?" Katie asked from where she laid under the comforter with her head on Damon's shoulder.

"We figured out how Elijah and his witch buddies were planning on killing Klaus." He answered and Katie rolled onto her stomach and propped her head up with her elbows and hands to look at him. "He was looking for where a bunch of witches were burned. If he found it he was going to have Jonas absorb all the power they left behind and take Klaus down while he was weak."

"Do we know where they were burned?" she asked curiously.

He nodded his head yes, but sighed and said, "nope." He grabbed his phone out of his pants on the floor and typed a message. "I found in a Gilbert journal that Emily was burned where those witches were burned. I know where Emily was burned."

"Well that sucks." Katie sighed and rolled back over, playing along because Katherine was probably listening in.

"Yep."

**A/N:** As always reviews, follows and favorites are welcome and encouraged.


	25. Chapter 25

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 25**

"Is there ever a boring day in the life of a vampire?" Katie flopped back on Damon's bed letting her arms land above her head. "Or is it only in Mystic Falls where in one day my witch best friend not only got her powers back, but absorbed the power of a hundred deceased witches, my doppelganger best friends vampire mother kills herself, my boyfriend and his brother give said doppelganger their mansion, and my vampire best friend tells her boyfriend that she's a vampire then compels him to forget?" she asked. "Oh and much to my disappointment there is no hope that a spell to unlink me from Elijah exists."

"I'm pretty sure it's just Mystic Falls." Damon told her as he flopped down beside her.

"All the more reason to get into college and get the hell out of this place." She sighed then rolled over onto Damon and grabbed the hem of his black t-shirt and pushed it up his torso.

TVDTVDTVD

The next morning Katie, Damon and Stefan stood outside the boarding house on the front porch while Elena, with Bonnie as her witness signed the papers officially putting the house in her name. "You really think Bonnie can take on Klaus?" Damon asked from where he stood behind Katie with his arms wrapped around her shoulders as they looked out across the sunny yard.

"She said she could channel enough witches' power to kill him." Stefan answered as Damon let go of her and turned to his brother. "Elijah thought it would work and he was an original."

"We just need to find him." Damon sighed and turned his eyes to Katie.

"Don't look at me. The only original I know how to find is lying in the dirt in your basement." Katie said as she pulled herself up to sit on the railing.

"Elijah didn't tell you anything about him back in the day?" Stefan asked because he knew Damon wasn't going to.

"Not that I can remember. There's still a lot that's fuzzy." Katie shrugged with a glance at Damon then looked at Stefan. "All I can remember is that he was a ruthless monster that Elijah hoped I never had the displeasure of meeting."

"Can't Bonnie just do one of those tracking spells?" Damon asked with a look back and forth between Katie and Stefan.

"Nope." Katie answered popping the p at the end of the word. "She has to have something that belongs to Klaus." Damon wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her back into his chest as he leaned back on the railing.

"She's right, I already asked." Stefan sighed and leaned next to them.

Things fell quiet for a moment before Damon asked, "Do you think he killed her?"

"Katherine?" Stefan asked and she felt the vibrations of Damon's hum against her back. "Probably."

"Try probably not." Katie spoke up. "If he treats everyone else that wronged him like he does his family then she's going to suffer for a long time." Damon leaned around her and gave her a wide eyed, curious look. "He doesn't go easy on the people that piss him off. I told you…he's ruthless."

A few seconds later Elena showed the lawyer to the door and invited Stefan then Katie inside. "What are we, 12?" Damon asked with an aggravated smirk.

"One of us is?" Elena popped off. "If I let you in, do you promise to obey the owner of this house?"

"No." Damon scoffed.

"Seriously Damon. My way. You promised. I call the shots." She told him being completely serious making Katie frown at him behind Elena's back. "No lies, no secrets agendas. Remember?"

"Ha!" Katie laughed leaning back a little and Elena looked at her. "I tried that one already." Elena rolled her eyes and turned back to Damon.

"Yes, Elena. Sure." Damon told her with aggravated attitude.

"Then please, come in." Elena waved him by.

"Okay, see you later." Katie kissed Damon then headed for the door along with Elena and Bonnie.

"Wait, where are you going?" Stefan asked Elena and the three girls stopped.

"To school." Elena answered as if it were obvious.

"Huh?" Stefan asked with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"No, no, no. We didn't create a safe house for you to leave it." Damon said as he walked over and placed his hands on the sides of Katie's neck. "The house may be in her name, but I did this for you too. The last time this guy saw you he beheaded you. What if he recognizes you and does it again?"

"Damon, I was a weak, un-expecting human back then. Now I'm a vampire who knows how to fight and has a very powerful witch as a best friend." She argued. "I promise you I'll be okay and he's probably ripped so many people's heads from their body that he won't remember me. Plus I know what he looks like."

"Look I know Klaus is out there, but as of right now no one knows where. I really appreciate what you guys are doing and I'll be able to sleep at night knowing that I'll be safe here, but I'm not going to be a prisoner."

Damon sucked air between his teeth then smirked at Katie and Elena aggravated. "Your way, Elena."

"Don't worry, I'm ready. If he shows his face, I can take him." Bonnie spoke up. "I know how."

"The way I see it," Elena started looking at Katie and Bonnie, "next to Bonnie and Katie is the safest place that I can be." The three girls headed outside.

"Wait. I'm…coming." Stefan sighed and followed after them.

TVDTVDTVD

The four of them were sitting in Alaric's class when Elena waved the flyer for the 60's dance that was happening tonight at her and Stefan. Katie shrugged while Stefan frowned and shook his head no. Elena gave them a disappointed look then turned to Bonnie and waved the flyer at her. Bonnie nodded and Stefan looked at Katie with a look that told her to do something. Katie pretended to scratch the underside her nose with the top of her finger, covering her mouth as she almost inaudibly whispered, "Hey, you're the one that signed a mansion over to her and sent her flying off on a power trip."

"It was your idea." He whispered back covering his mouth too so no one would know they were talking.

"No, it was my idea to put _my_ house in her name. Small, slightly run down, nothing to get a big head over." Katie replied.

Stefan shrugged his shoulders with a flick of his brows that seemed to say, "Well, too late now."

"Hey." Elena snapped getting their attention. "Secrets don't make friends."

"Sometimes they do." Katie popped off with a smirk and a shrug of her shoulders. Elena just rolled her eyes and shook her head knowing Katie was just kidding.

"Hello class." Alaric said as he walked in and grabbed a book from his desk. "What…are we learning today?"

Katie noticed he seemed a bit off as he flipped through the book looking a little confused, but she brushed it off, thinking he was just having a bad day because of everything that had recently happened with him and Jenna. However, as the class went on Katie noticed him looking at her as if he were trying to place where he knew her from, which was odd because obviously he knew who she was. Once again, against her better judgment she brushed it off.

At lunch, Katie, Elena and Bonnie sat at a round table eating when a fellow classmate, Dana, walked up. "Hey, Elena, there you are. This is going to sound freaky, but this totally hot guy asked me to ask you if you were going to the dance tonight."

Elena made a flattered face then smiled at Bonnie. "Tell him she has a boyfriend." Bonnie told her.

"You could at least meet him. He'll be at the dance tonight. Look for him. His name is Klaus." Dana told them excitedly.

All of their faces fell. "I'm sorry what did you just say?" Elena asked.

"His…name is Klaus?" Dana asked as if Elena's question had been weird. "I know the name is stupid, but I swear he's hot."

"What did he look like specifically?" Katie asked with a confused frown. She'd been on the look out for Klaus all day and hadn't seen him.

"I don't know…" she answered looking around like she couldn't remember before she smiled at them and said, "But he's totally hot."

"Elena, she's been compelled." Katie warned her then looked back at Dana.

"He wants to know if you'll save him the last dance. How cute is that?" Dana asked.

"Why don't you go see if Caroline needs help with the decorations?" Katie asked as she looked Dana in the eyes. The girl shrugged with a smile and walked off. "Okay," Katie looked across her shoulder at Elena, "You're in charge. Are we staying at school or ditching and heading to safety?"

"You're sure you know what he looks like?" Elena asked with a worried look.

"I've seen is face almost every night since I turned. Trust me. I know what he looks like." Kate assured her.

"Then we're staying in school. I miss too many more days and I'm going to get held back." Elena complained.

"Um, you have two friends that can work some compulsion on whoever we need to. You won't get held back." Katie told her with a wave.

"Even still, we're sticking it out." Elena told her with a stubborn nod.

"Sticking it out it is." Bonnie agreed as the bell started ringing.

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"So we go to the dance and we find him." Damon suggested after the girls told him and Stefan what happened. They stood in the doorway of the boarding house where they had been met by Damon as soon as they got home.

"Really how are we going to do that?" Stefan asked. "We don't even know what he looks like." He looked at Katie. "One person out of all of us isn't much help."

"Something tells me he's not going to be 16 and pimply." Damon pointed out with a roll of his eyes.

"Try dimple chinned, dirty blond kind of curly hair, naturally pouty lips, dark blue-green eyes with a body build similar to Damon's but maybe a little taller." She answered making everyone look at her. "You guys remember me making you watch the movie Raise Your Voice right?" she asked and the two girls nodded. "Think Kiwi only more mature."

"Yeah we don't know who that is." Stefan told her with a shake of his head and the ever present frown.

"Bing Johnny Lewis." she told them.

"Can we get back on topic here?" Stefan asked. "The point is that Klaus could be anywhere at anytime. He compelled someone at school today and none of you saw him." he told them as he put his hands on his hips and gave the girls a pointed look. "I guess it's not as safe as you guys thought, huh?"

A knock sounded at the door before Alaric came in. After that they decided that they were going to go to the dance and if need be Bonnie would used her powers to kill him. "Come on, I want to show you something." Damon told her as everyone was going separate ways and he nudged her shoulder with his and jerked his head for her to follow him.

"All of this is vintage?" Katie asked looking at the boxes of women's clothing from the sixty's.

"Yep, it's the perks of living so long. Plus my ancestors tend to be pack rats." He told her as he wrapped his arms around her from behind. "Pick anything you want."

After digging through some boxes and scattering clothes all over his room Katie had three potential outfits laid out on his bed. "Twiggy, Audrey Hepburn or generic hippy?" she asked with a point to each outfit.

"Audrey." He answered without even having to think about it as he pointed to the black dress, black gloves, pearls and even a vintage cigarette holder.

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Katie and Damon were walking arm in arm through the parking lot toward the gym when Katie overheard Jeremy and Bonnie talking. Katie's sensitive ears caught Jeremy saying, "I can't just let you get yourself killed."

Katie pulled Damon to a stop. "What?" Katie tapped her ear and pointed to Bonnie and Jeremy. "Now who's an eavesdropper?" he asked and she shushed him.

"So you're saying there's a 50-50 shot that you won't die?" Jeremy asked Bonnie and Katie looked up at Damon with wide eyes.

Bonnie hugged Jeremy and caught Katie looking at them with wide eyes. Katie started over to them, but Elena and Stefan walked over at the same time. So Katie and Damon refrained from talking about what they just over heard.

"Hey guys." Katie greeted. "Loving the looks." She told them with a smile and a motion to their outfits.

"You too." Elena replied then looked up at Stefan with a worried face.

"You guys ready to do this?" Stefan asked everyone in the circle.

With heads held high they headed to the dance. As they walked into the gym Dana cut off the music and started making an announcement. "We have a special shout-out tonight. This is for Elena." It caught the group's attention. "From Klaus."

When the loud over the top intro stopped Damon spoke up. "That was a lame, cheep shot. He's just trying to bait us."

"I know everyone here." Elena said as she looked at everyone in the over the top decorated gym.

"Yeah, I don't see him." Katie added doing the same. "If he's here he's staying out of sight."

Damon looked around at them standing still in the middle of the dance floor. "This is a party people, blend." He grabbed Katie by the hand and gave her a twirl. "Let him come to us." he said to everyone, but looked at her.

"Good idea." Bonnie said as she grabbed Jeremy's hand and pulled him away to dance.

"I'm gonna go talk to Ric." Damon said as he pulled Katie with him, leaving Elena and Stefan to dance.

"Special dedication huh?" Alaric asked as Katie and Damon walked over. "This guys a little twisted."

"I'm not impressed." Damon said as he wrapped his arm around Katie's waist.

"No?" Alaric asked sounding surprised.

"No." Katie answered. "It was stupid and way too typical of a taunt."

Alaric gave her another weird look for the millionth time that day, but this one looked a little more like he was disappointed by her words. "Let me know if you see anything out of whack." Damon told him before he gave Katie a twirl and they headed out onto the dance floor. They were dancing to Last Kiss by Pearl Jam when Damon noticed how down Katie looked. "You're worried about Bonnie aren't you?"

"Of course I am. Taking on Klaus could kill her, but not killing Klaus will kill Elena and there is nothing I can do to make it better." She explained over the music. "I feel useless. I'm the only one who knows what Klaus looks like yet I can't find him."

"Don't worry about Bonnie and stop putting so much pressure on yourself. We're all pretty much useless at this point. Well, other than Bonnie." he told her then spun her out then back into his chest, dancing with her back pressed against him.

When Matt and Caroline walked in Stefan started dancing with Caroline to fill her in and Elena danced with Matt to keep him company. "You know, even though there's a dangerous vampire somewhere at this party…I'm having fun." Katie told him over her shoulder. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He twirled her around so that they were dancing face to face again. "And if things ever calm down, I promise to take you out on an actual date."

"I'm holding you to it." she told him with a smile and a glare.

"I need to talk to Bonnie. I'll be back in a second." He told her and they headed over to Bonnie and Jeremy. "May I?" Damon asked.

Jeremy looked at Bonnie who nodded. So Katie held her hand out to Jeremy. "You gonna leave me hanging?" she asked with an awkward smile. He sighed like he really didn't want to then slapped his hand into hers. They walked a little ways away from Damon and Bonnie and started dancing. "I know this is awkward, but I overheard what Bonnie told you…about her having a 50-50 chance of surviving if she goes up against Klaus." Jeremy rolled his eyes and looked away from her. "You're mad, I get it, I am too."

"So you think you could talk her out of it?" he asked as he looked her in the eyes and he could tell by the look in hers that she wasn't going to try. "Of course not. You're just like Damon." He scoffed as he jerked his arms off of where they rested on her shoulders and took off.

"Jeremy." Katie tried to stop him, but he kept walking.

Katie sighed and let her head fall forward. "Hey, everything okay?" Damon asked as, I Think We're Alone Now by Tiffany, an upbeat song, started playing.

"Yeah, let's just…get back out there and blend." She sighed so Damon grabbed her hand with devious smile. They were smiling and dancing when Stefan came over and pulled Damon away.

"Please tell me that you didn't know Bonnie was on a suicide mission." He told Damon, but look at Katie too.

"Oh, great, Jeremy told you and of course you told Elena." Damon replied with a frown.

"Yeah, I told her." he told him then turned his eyes to Katie. "You should have the second you found out." He then looked at Damon. "You promised her no more secrets."

"I changed my mind." He told Stefan with a glare.

"Guys," Katie spoke up getting their attention, "Jeremy's getting jumped in the hallway." She didn't give them a chance to say anything before she started running for the exit.

"Hey assholes!" Katie yelled making the three guys look her way. She was almost to Jeremy when one of the guys pulled out a crossbow and shot Katie in the neck. "Seriously?" she rasped not being able to breathe. Damon zipped over and pulled the stake out of her neck.

"Let me guess, Klaus says hi." Damon said as he grabbed the guy that shot her.

Katie punched one guy while Stefan punched the other, knocking them out. "No, no, no." Stefan stuttered stopping Damon from staking the third guy. "Don't kill him. He's compelled."

"So?" Damon asked.

"So the whole thing is a distraction. You two go find Bonnie and Elena. I got this." Stefan told them.

Damon threw the guy against the lockers that lined the hall then he and Katie took off outside to find Elena and Bonnie. "Look who can punch guys and run in heels." Damon commented as they ran.

"Yeah, I'm really maturing." She joked flatly

"Seriously, where'd you learn to punch like that?" he asked as they paused for a second, looking around for the girls.

"Elijah." She answered then met Damon's eyes. "He taught me how to fight. Fat lot of good it did to help me then." She sighed. "Where are they?" she stopped and started listening.

Eventually they heard the sound of glass breaking and headed that way. They ran into Elena and Bonnie. "What happened?" Damon asked as they all came to a stop in the middle of the school hallway.

"Klaus is in Alaric's body." Elena panted with a point over her shoulder.

"What?" Damon and Katie asked at the same time.

"He's possessing it or something." Bonnie added.

"Go find Stefan. Now." Damon told Elena and she ran off. "Can you kill him?" he asked Bonnie.

"He's got some kind of protection spell on him." Bonnie answered.

"You have the power of a hundred witches. Break it." Damon told her.

"I'm trying!" Bonnie snapped at him. "If I kill Alaric, he'll just possess someone else. He knows I have my power, Damon. He's trying to kill me."

"No." Damon said with a shake of his head. "Klaus does not get to win tonight, no way. You still willing to do whatever it takes to kill him?"

Bonnie nodded. Katie looked at Damon knowing he had an idea. "So what's the plan?" she asked.

"He wants to kill you." he told Bonnie then looked at Katie. "So let's make him think you're dead." He looked back and Bonnie who gave him a stiff nod.

Damon and Katie went looking for Elena and Stefan who found them fairly quickly. "What are you doing? Where's Bonnie?" Elena asked when they met up in the hallway.

"She's doing what she has to do." Damon answered.

Elena and Stefan looked back and forth between Damon and Katie. "What?" Elena asked.

"Where is she?" Stefan asked Damon then looked at Katie. "I would expect this from him, but not you."

"Stefan, let Bonnie do this." Damon argued.

"Damn it Damon, where is she!?" Stefan yelled.

When neither of them answered Elena and Stefan took off in the direction Katie and Damon had come from. The couple followed a little ways behind them. They were rounding the corner when they saw Bonnie slam the cafeteria doors in Elena and Stefan's faces.

Katie and Damon waited behind Stefan and Elena who where fighting to get inside to Bonnie, until the witch passed out and the doors opened. The tears on Katie's face were real as she walked into the cafeteria where Elena sat beside Bonnie begging Stefan to do something to save her. "It's too late. I'm sorry." Stefan told her.

"How could you let her do that?" Elena shouted at Katie. "You knew she would die if she took him on!"

"It was her choice Elena." Katie told her then wiped her tears.

"Stefan, get Elena out of here. I'll deal with the body." Damon said as he walked into the room.

"What do you mean deal with it?" Elena asked still crying hysterically.

"Sheriff Forbs can't know about this. If she finds out that Bonnie died mysteriously people will start asking questions and that's the last thing we need." Katie answered as Damon walked over and tried to pick up Bonnie.

"This is Bonnie!" Elena yelled at them then looked at Katie. "How can you be so heartless?"

Damon looked at Stefan. "Get her home. Now."

Stefan started trying to get Elena to stand up. "No. Jeremy. Oh my god, Jeremy. What about Jeremy?"

"I'll find him." Katie told her gently. Elena cried as Stefan lifted her up and took her from the cafeteria.

While Damon brought Bonnie to his car Katie went after Jeremy. They found Damon as he was shutting the trunk. "You said you were bringing me to Bonnie." Jeremy complained when he saw Damon.

"We need to have a little talk." Damon then explained what happened and what they were going to do next.

They brought Bonnie and Jeremy to the witch massacre house then headed home.

"What did you do with her?" Elena asked when she saw Damon and Katie walk into the boarding house.

"Will you please calm her down?" Damon asked.

"Don't talk like I'm not standing right in front of you." Elena told him, still upset and crying.

"Please…calm…down." Damon told her putting emphasis on each word.

"You knew!" Elena yelled at them. "Both of you knew didn't you? You knew that if she harnessed all that power, that she would die."

"Yes." Damon and Katie answered at the same time.

"Yes, we knew." Elena slapped Damon. "You need to listen to me and prepare for what I'm about to say."

Katie stepped back, content to let Damon explain everything to them. When Damon finished telling her everything he walked away and Stefan went after him. "How could you do that?" Elena asked her.

"Damon, Bonnie and I did what had to be done. I'm sorry to have put you through that." She told her simply then went to her room.

She had just gotten out of the shower when she heard Damon and Elena talking in his room. "Let's get one thing straight, Damon. Bonnie will not die for me. I will not let that happen." She heard Elena say.

"We need to kill Klaus, Elena. Real Klaus. Who will probably be coming to pay you a visit soon now that he knows that Bonnie's dead. She's the only one who can do it." she heard Damon tell Elena as she dried off and grabbed some clothes out of her dresser.

"We'll find another way." Elena argued.

"I hope so." Damon answered.

"Look, I shouldn't have hit you." Elena told him.

"Apology accepted." Damon answered and Katie thought the conversation was over, but Damon started talking again. "Let me be clear about something. If it comes down to you and the witch again, I will gladly let Bonnie die."

Katie stopped listening when she heard Elena leave Damon's room. She was pulling an old band T-shirt over her head when she heard a knocked on her door. To her surprise it was Elena. "Can we talk?"

"Yeah, sure." Katie stepped aside and waved her into the room.

"I want to un-dagger Elijah." She told her quietly.

"What?" Katie asked. "No."

"Hear me out." Elena whispered. Katie tapped her finger on her ear then held it up telling Elena to give her a second. She plugged her phone up to a speaker and turned on some music to make it harder for Damon and Stefan to hear them. Katie motioned for Elena to talk. "I refuse to let Bonnie die for me and I know you were willing to let her do it tonight, but I won't let it happen again."

"So what does un-daggering Elijah accomplish?" Katie asked as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Other than making things between me and Damon complicated again?"

"If anyone will know of another way to kill Klaus it's him." Elena argued.

"I'm guessing you don't want Damon or Stefan to know what you're planning?" Katie asked and Elena sighed and shook her head no. "I can't keep secrets from Damon."

"Katie, please, this is bigger than you and Damon or me and Stefan for that matter. This could save people's lives." Elena begged her.

"I'm not going to help you, but I'm not going to stand in your way either. As far as I'm concerned we never had this conversation." Katie told her then opened the door and jerked her head for Elena to leave her room.

TVDTVDTVD

Katie was getting dressed when she heard a crash downstairs. She whooshed down only to be grabbed by Elijah and whooshed outside with him where he collapsed on the porch taking her down with him. "Katie." He panted and she put her finger over her lips. When Elena showed up at the door Elijah tried to go inside after her, but he couldn't enter. "What happened?" he asked.

Elena shushed him and pointed to her ear then up to the guys rooms. "I'll tell you." she whispered almost inaudibly. "Not here. Can I trust you?"

"Can I trust you?" Elijah whispered back. As an answer Elena handed him the dagger she had taken from him. Elijah took it then looked at Katie. "Katie comes too." Elijah told her and she nodded.

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Katie and Elijah both drank blood bags from her stash at her house as Elena drove. "Where did you get the dagger?" Elijah asked as she pulled to a stop on the shoulder of the road.

"I'll tell you everything, but we have to work together, Elijah." Elena replied. "I need your word."

"Your ability to make demands has long passed." Elijah told her.

"No demands." Elena told him with a glance at Katie in the back seat, finishing off her blood bag. "I'm offing you my help and in return, I want yours."

"And why should I even consider this?" Elijah asked also glancing back at Katie who hadn't said a word to him since he woke.

"The same reason that you haven't killed me. You need my help to kill Klaus and I need you." Elena's phone started ringing and she picked it up to see Stefan's name on the screen.

"Where's Elijah?" Stefan asked.

"He's right here." Elena told him.

"Where? I'm on my way." Stefan said hastily.

"No, Stefan, Elijah and I need some time to talk." Elena told him.

"Listen to me. He can't be trusted." Stefan argued. "He'll use you to get to Klaus."

"Elijah is a noble man, Stefan. He lives by a code of honor. I can trust him." Elena told him. "He knows that I'd be incredibly stupid to betray him again. By removing the dagger I have proven myself."

"You can't do this alone." Stefan argued.

"It's my decision, Stefan. Please respect it. And I'm not alone, so make sure Damon doesn't do anything stupid." She told him as she looked back at Katie.

"Who's with you?" Stefan asked on high alert.

"Elijah wouldn't talk to me unless Katie came too." Elena informed him. "I'll be in touch." She hung up the phone then looked at Elijah who held his hand out for her phone. She put it in his head then he looked back at Katie and held his hand out for her phone too.

"I don't have it." she told them with a shrug. "I wasn't exactly prepaid to leave the house when you snatched me up." She said with a point to her messy hair.

"Okay so where are we going?" Elena asked as she put her hands on the steering wheel.

"The Lockwood's. We will be able to talk freely there." He told her so she pulled onto the road.

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"Elijah? Katie, Elena, what are you doing here?" Carol asked when she answered the door looking like she was about to leave and saw Katie and Elena standing on each side of Elijah. "What happened?" she asked when she noticed the burned and tattered state of Elijah's clothes.

"I've had a bit of an incident, Carol. I'm hoping you could help." Elijah answered and Katie couldn't help but smirk. What he called and incident was really Damon attempting to burn his desiccated body.

"Well, I'm on my way to a meeting, so I-"

"It won't take but a minute of your time." Elijah stepped up and looked her in the eyes.

"Of course. Anything you need." Carol replied with a smile as she stepped back and let them inside.

"Well first things first." Elijah said as they walked in and Carol shut the door behind them. "I'm going to need a change of clothing."

"Well, we could try one of my husband's suits. I haven't boxed them up yet." Carol told him then headed upstairs.

"How did you know she's not on vervain?" Elena asked and Katie was curious too, but she wasn't speaking to Elijah unless he spoke to her first.

"Because I'm the one that got her off of it." Elijah answered. "Right before you and," he looked at Katie, "your friends killed me." He looked back at Elena. "Twice." Katie rolled her eyes at him. "If you'll excuse me I'll be down in a moment." He headed up the stairs leaving Katie and Elena alone.

Katie headed into the parlor and flopped down on the couch and Elena sat down in an armchair. "Am I sensing tension between you two?" Elena asked noticing that once again Katie's arms were folded over her chest.

"Just a little." Katie said as she held up her fingers in a pinching motion. "I don't really want to talk about it."

Soon Elijah came down wearing a fresh suit and his hair was combed. Katie's eyes took him in from head to toe and he cleared his throat to get her attention. "So I assume the martin witches are no longer with us." he asked as he sat down on the couch next to Katie. She got up and sat down in the armchair that was next to the one Elena sat in. A round end table separated them.

"No." Elena answered. "I'm sorry."

Katie thought he was going to ask if Jonas had managed to give her memories back to her, but instead he said "And Katerina? She would have been released from my compulsion when I died."

"Klaus took her." Elena answered and Katie noticed a ghost of an emotion danced across his face. She doubted Elena even saw it, but it made Katie wonder if Elijah cared about Katherine. "We think that she may be dead."

"I doubt that." Elijah replied. "Not Niklaus' style. Death would be too easy for her after what she did."

"I don't understand. You say that you want Klaus dead, but you still made Katherine pay for betraying him." Elena said as she scooted to the edge of her chair.

"I have my own reasons for wanting Katerina to pay." His words make Katie pay closer attention. "I'm assuming that Katie has told you everything I told her during our lunch the other evening?" he asked looking at her only for her to look away from him.

"Yes the told us that Klaus is your half brother and his biological father was a werewolf. I know you have other siblings but I don't know where they are or even if they are still alive. And I also know the sun and moon curse is not real. What Klaus really wants to do is break the curse put on him to keep his wolf gene locked away." She told him and he nodded at her then looked at Katie who still wasn't looking at them.

Elena's phone kept buzzing. He sighed and pulled it out of his pocket. "Your phone will not stop its incessant buzzing. Answer it, please." He stood up and held it out to Elena and she took it.

"Stefan," She started ready to give him an ear full but her face changed to one of worry. "What's wrong? No. No, no, no." she rushed, "Okay I'll be right there." She hung up then looked at Elijah. "Klaus went after Jenna. I have to go to her."

"I'm afraid that wasn't part of today's arrangement." Elijah pointed out.

"She's my family, Elijah. I have to." Elena argued. "I'll be back. You have my word."

"That doesn't mean anything to me until you live up to it." he told her and she ran off, the front door slamming behind her.

Even with Elena gone Katie didn't look at Elijah. "You're mad at me." He said from where he still stood in front of the couch.

"You think?" Katie asked as she stood up, glaring at him. "You had Mr. Martin destroy the dam in my mind and flood it with memories, most of which I still don't want."

"And you conspired with Damon to kill me. The feeling is mutual." He told her with a glare of his own.

"I didn't conspire with him!" Katie defended herself taking a step closer to him as she started ranting. "He and Alaric did that behind my back. I naively thought it was just going to be a simple dinner party. I didn't know that stupid dagger even existed until it was shoved into your back and knocked me to my knees."

"You didn't try to kill me?" he asked a little shocked that she was yelling at him.

"No." she answered.

"Even still am not sorry for making you remember me." he told her as he looked down at the floor with his hands in his pockets.

Katie took a deep breath and let her head fall to look at the floor as she calmed herself. "I need some fresh air." She told him and he looked up at her. "Take a walk with me?" he gave her a small smirk as he held his arm out to her. She looped her arm through it, feeling the pull to him she always felt in close proximity, and led him to the back door. "You didn't know why and neither did I, but there was a reason I didn't want my memories back." she explained as they walked down the steps out into the yard. "It has nothing to do with you and me or Damon and me and everything to do with my father."

"What does Bradley have to do with your memories?" Elijah asked a little confused.

"Not my father from this life, my first father, Hannah's father." She told him as they walked over to the pond in the back yard. "I never told you why Ronan and I moved so far away from them to live in a piece of crap cabin in the middle of nowhere." She told him and he looked down at her, squinting in the sun. "It will be easier to just show you." she told him as they came to a stop at the edge of the pond and she let go of his arm. He watched her curiously as she grabbed his hand and placed it on her head, the heel of his palm resting over her temple.

As they both closed their eyes, flashing images of Hannah and her sister getting flogged with a cat of nine tails, running through the fields as their father yelled for them to come back, or climbing a tree in an attempt to hide from the vicious, hateful man, flashed through their heads. When Katie thought he had seen enough to get her point across she took his hand off of her and opened her eyes, staring into his sympathetic brown eyes. "I never would have guessed." He said with a shake of his head as he let what she'd shown him sink in. "You didn't have any scars on your back."

"My nanny was Fiona's mother. She used magic to keep me from scaring." She explained. "If it hadn't been for her my sister and I wouldn't have made it past the age of ten."

"I take it back. I am sorry." he told her as he cupped her cheek in his hand.

She closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of him for a moment. "You didn't know." She told him and he slid his hand around to the back of her neck and pulled her in for a hug. "I was so mad at you, for forcing me to remember everything." She told his as she wrapped her arms around him, pressing her palms over his shoulder blades. "But I can't stay mad at you." she realized it was true. She couldn't stay mad at him for the same reason she couldn't stay mad as Damon. She pulled back, her hands resting on his shoulders while his held her waist. "I forgive you."

He took in a deep breath and slid his hand over her cheek. She thought he was going to kiss her lips, but instead he placed a gentle kiss to her forehead. "I have to wonder if Damon knows how lucky he is to have you."

Katie sighed and tried to hold back her emotions. "He does." She told him with a nod as she lifted her head from his. "And I'm sorry, but I'm still choosing him. The only thing getting my memories back has changed is the fact that I now know that my love for you isn't the link or magic, it's just…us. It's real."

"How can you choose him after admitting that you love me?" he asked getting a little angry.

"Because I love him too." She answered as she slid her hands up to hold the sides of his neck. "And in this life I loved him first. I told him I would always choose him and who would I be if I went back on my promise?" Elijah just stared at her. "I wish I could be selfish like Katherine and have both of you, but I can't." She stood on her tip toes and pressed a kiss to his stubbly cheek. They both heard Elena pull up out front. "I have to go." With a whoosh, she disappeared.

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"Where's Elena?" Stefan headed her way from the parlor when he heard her walk in.

"Still talking to Elijah." She sighed as she walked into the parlor and over to Damon where he sat on the couch and sat down next to him.

"You left her alone with him?" Stefan asked as if it were a big mistake.

"Yes." She answered as she noticed Damon lean away from her. "She's safe with him you don't have to worry."

"I don't have to worry?" Stefan asked getting mad. "He's an original. He can't be trusted."

Katie stood from the couch and headed to the decanter behind the couch. "I need a drink."

TVDTVDTVD

They were sitting in the study having a drink when Elena and Elijah walked in. "Now you've invited him in?" Damon asked as they all stood up.

"Elijah and I have renewed the terms of our deal." Elena told them.

"Really?" Damon asked with an attitude getting a warning look from Katie.

"The two of you will come to no harm at my hands." Elijah informed them then walked closer to the railing that separated them. "I only ask for one thing in return."

"What?" Damon asked as Elena walked over to stand behind Elijah.

"An apology." Elijah said as Katie grabbed Damon's hand in an attempt to calm him.

"A what?" Damon asked snarkily.

Stefan, Katie and Damon exchanged looked before Stefan walked closer to Elijah, "I'm sorry for the part I played in your death. I was protecting Elena. I will always protect Elena."

"I understand." Elijah told Stefan then everyone looked at Damon who glared at him and shook his head no.

"The sacrifice is going to happen, Damon." Elena told him. "Bonnie will be able to kill Klaus without hurting herself and Elijah knows how to save my life. I told you I'd find another way and I did."

"Is that true?" Damon asked, glaring at Elijah.

"It is." Elijah answered flatly.

"And you're trusting him?" Damon asked Elena then looked at Katie letting her know he was asking her too, then looked back at Elena.

"I am." Elena answered.

Damon looked at Katie. She looked at Elijah who gave her a nod then looked back at Damon. "I trust him. And I don't think an apology is too much to ask considering you guys killed him, twice."

"You can all go to hell." Damon told them with a pointed look at Katie before he walked off.

"This is who you chose to love?" Elijah asked not caring about the other people in the room.

"He's mad at me for trusting you. He'll come around." Katie defended.

"Perhaps." Elijah replied before Katie went after Damon.

"Damon?" Katie called as she walked into his room and found him in his closet. "I know you're mad at me for siding with him and Elena, but he told me before that he knew of a way to save Elena and I'm sorry, but I believe him."

"Get out of here, Katie." He didn't look at her and instead put an empty hanger back on the rod.

"No." she told him sternly as he brushed past her and tossed the plain black shirt in his hand on the bed. "I know you care about Elena and you have for a while now, but this is the only way we can save her and kill Klaus without Bonnie dieing."

"I said get out." He snapped as he turned to look at her.

"And I said," he walked over to him and slid her hands up his chest to each side of his neck, "No." he glared at her. "Be mad at me all you want, but don't shut me out."

"Did you help Elena un-dagger him? Was it your idea?" he asked and now Katie understood why he'd been pulling away from her all day.

"Last night she told me what she wanted to do and I begged her not to." She answered and Damon got angrier. "She told me she wouldn't and I believed her."

"But you didn't go out of your way to make sure she didn't do it, did you?" he asked and Katie's eyes fell to the floor. "Right." He sighed and headed to the door and opened it then jerked his head for her to leave.

"You said you wouldn't let him come between us." Katie argued not moving from where she stood in the middle of his room.

"So did you, but you let Elena take that dagger out of him." he told her angrily.

"What do you want me to say?" Katie asked raising her voice. "That I couldn't stand the thought of him laying dead in the dust? That I love him?" she asked rhetorically and he just stared at her with wide angry eyes. "Fine, I love him. I love him just as much as I love you and I hate it! I hate having to choose between the two loves of my lives, but I have to and I choose you, Damon." She told him as she crossed the room and grabbed his open button up shirt in her fists. "From the moment I saw you at the grill, making flirty eyes at Caroline I knew I wanted to be with you. I never thought for a second that you'd actually want me back, but you do and I will be damned it I let you go." A little anger faded from his face. "So please, don't give up on me."

Damon grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her to him, kissing her like his life depended on it. When the kiss broke he pressed his forehead to hers, "I won't give up on you."

"Thank you." she sighed and opened her eyes to stare into his before he kissed her and they slipped closed again.


	26. Chapter 26

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 26**

"Hey." Katie said getting Damon's attention from where he was staring off into space. "Where did you go?" she asked as she turned onto her side, propping her head up with her hand and elbow and rested her hand on his chest.

"I was just thinking about the first time I saw you." he told her as he turned onto his side and tucked his arm under his pillow.

"At the grill, after the bonfire?" Katie asked and Damon shook his head no. Katie tilted her head curiously.

"That was the first time you saw me." He corrected her. "The first time I saw you, you were sitting outside the grill after hours, reading." He told her with a content smirk. "It was during the summer. So I couldn't help but wonder, what is a beautiful girl like her doing reading when she could be out partying with her friends?"

"You did not think that." She laughed and he slid his hand absentmindedly over her bare side.

"I mean I thought you looked a little nerdy because of the glasses and the book, but you were and still are undeniably beautiful." He told her then looked into her eyes.

"You are so full of it." she laughed as he kissed her.

"I am not and you know it." he told her as he started kissing her neck. "I found out after I read your journal that you were sitting out there after work because you were waiting for your grandfather to get too hammered to make it up the stairs."

"Yep, and you saved me from him." she told him as she pushed him to lay on his back then straddled his hips. "Something I will always be thankful for." She leaned down and started kissing his chest. "Now, no more talk of the past." He smiled as she pressed her lips to his.

A laugh left her lips as he rolled her over with vamp speed and started kissing her stomach, knowing it would tickle her. They both laughed when she grabbed his hair and pulled him up to her lips. Her legs, wrapped around his waist kept him in place as she slid one hand to grip his back and the other held the side of his neck.

* * *

They were stepping out of the shower when she saw Damon frown. "What's the frown for?" she asked as she towel dried her hair.

"Elijah's here." He answered as he tied the snow white towel around his waist.

Katie listened to them downstairs. "Tonight is the full moon. We should assume that Klaus is prepared to break the curse." She heard Elijah saying.

She headed into his bedroom and grabbed a robe. "I know you don't like this plan, but for right now it's the best we've got." She tied the robe closed.

"No, the best option would be for Bonnie to take him down now." He argued.

"I don't have any blood family, Damon. My friends are the closest thing I've got and I refuse to let any of them die." Katie argued.

"Then one of us should give Elena our blood and let her come back as a vampire. At least then we would know for sure that she would come back." he argued as he went inside his closet.

"Elena doesn't want to be a vampire Damon." Katie pointed out as she walked into the closet with him.

"Has she told you she doesn't want to be a vampire?" he asked as he grabbed a long sleeved button up shirt and took it off the hanger.

"No, but she didn't have to. I know her well enough to know it's not something she would want." She told him and he brushed past her. "So you're back to being mad at me?" she asked as she watched him pull on the shirt.

"I'm not mad at you I'm just…mad in general." He sighed and she walked over to where he was grabbing a pair of jeans out of his dresser.

She didn't know what to say so instead of saying anything she grabbed his face in her hands and looked into his eyes for a moment then kissed him. "I'm gonna go get dressed. I'll see you down stairs?" he hummed a positive answer then kissed her again.

She went to her room and threw her hair up into a messy bun and put on a pair of dark wash jean shorts and a flowy, black, floral print tank top. She finished it off with classic black and white converse then headed down stairs. "The curse has kept his werewolf aspect from manifesting. But if he breaks it…he'll be a true hybrid." Katie heard Elijah saying as she walked into the study and stood at the table that held the tray of decanters and glasses. She was debating on pouring herself a drink when Damon walked up beside her, pulled the stopper out of the bourbon then poured two glasses and handed one to Katie.

Elijah watched her take the glass and sip the amber liquid as Damon wrapped his arm possessive around her waist. He couldn't help but think about how weird it was to see Katie drinking when Hannah refused to touch even a drop of liquor.

"Alright, how do we break this curse?" Stefan asked from where he sat in an armchair.

"Well, the ritual itself is relatively straightforward. The ingredients, so to speak, you already know." Elijah stood up and walked past Damon as he spoke.

"The moonstone." Stefan answered.

"A witch will channel the power of the full moon to release the spell that's bound within the stone." Elijah answered and it only reminded Katie how much she liked to listen to him talk. "After that, Klaus, being both werewolf and vampire, will sacrifice one of each."

"And where do I fit into it?" Elena asked as Elijah walked back over to the armchair he had been sitting in and rested his hand on the back of it.

"The final part of the ritual." He told her as he walked over to the bookshelf behind him and picked up a wooden box. "Klaus must drink the blood of the doppelganger to the point of your death." Damon glared at Elena while Stefan reached over and grabbed Elena's arm and rested his head in his hand. Katie sighed and tapped the table that held the decanter set, nervous about if Elijah's way of saving her would work or not.

"And that's where you come in." Elena said with a sigh up at Elijah.

"This is an elixir that I acquired some 500 years ago for Katerina. It possess mystical properties of resuscitation." He answered as he took an odd shaped glass container out of the box.

"So I'll be dead?" Elena asked.

"And then you won't." Elijah answered.

"That's your plan?" Damon asked with an attitude that was getting on Katie's nerves. "A magical witch potion with no expiration date?" he asked Elijah then turned to Elena. "You want to come back to life, what about John's ring?"

"Those rings only work on humans." Elijah answered. "The doppleganger's a supernatural occurrence. Odds are, the ring wont work."

"I'll take those odds over your elixir." Damon replied then looked at Elena. "What if it doesn't work, Elena?"

"Then I'll just be dead." Elena answered.

Damon looked at Stefan for help, but Stefan just shrugged. So he looked at Katie. "I don't know what to tell you, Damon. I wish I did, but I don't." Damon scoffed and walked out of the room. "You said Klaus needs a werewolf and a vampire." Katie spoke up as she moved around the couch and sat down on the opposite end from Elena. "Do you know if he has a werewolf?"

"Klaus had been waiting to break this curse for over a thousand years. If he doesn't already have a werewolf, my guess is by tonight he will." Elijah answered.

Katie and Elena looked at each other. "You're worried about Tyler." Elena said more than asked, but Katie still nodded.

"I'm gonna go talk to Damon." Stefan sighed as he stood up and walked out.

"Who's Tyler?" Elijah asked curiously.

Elena smiled at her, wondering if Katie was going to give Elijah the whole back story on her and Tyler. Katie rolled her eyes at her then looked at Elijah. "Tyler is my ex and happens to be the only werewolf from Mystic Falls." She answered as she stood up. "He left to figure things out after he triggered his gene. No one has heard from him since, not even his mom."

"If Klaus has him there's nothing we can do." He told her with a sympathetic look.

"I need a drink." Katie sighed and headed out of the room.

"Where are you going the alcohols right here?" Elena asked with a point to the decanters behind the table.

"A real drink." Katie answered as she headed to the basement.

She had just poured the blood bag into a glass when she heard Aunt Jenna yelling. So she whooshed to the sound to see everyone gathered around while Jenna held a crossbow on Alaric. "It's me, I swear, okay?" Alaric pleaded holding his hands in the air. "He let me go, okay? Klaus let me go."

"Prove it." Damon told him standing behind Alaric.

Alaric looked at Jenna. "Okay, uh, first night you and I spent together, Jeremy walk in right when I was about to-"

"Okay!" Jenna cut him off. "It's him."

"Ugh, TMI." Katie whispered.

Elijah, who she was standing behind looked at her over his shoulder. "What's TMI?"

"Too much information." Katie answered then they turned their attention back to Alaric.

"He wanted me to deliver a message." Alaric told them then looked at Elena. "The sacrifice happens tonight."

Katie heaved a heavy sigh and headed to the parlor where she sat down in a high backed chair at the end of the couch, her glass of blood in her hands. Elijah followed behind her as did everyone else but Damon, who went to his room. "Are you okay?" Elijah asked as he stood behind Katie and rested his arm on the high back.

She tilted her head up, looking at him. "I'm fine. Just…nervous I guess." She answered him quietly as Elena, Alaric and Jenna sat down around the room. Stefan remained standing. Katie gave Elijah a small smile before she turned her attention to Stefan.

"So you don't remember anything that happened?" Stefan asked Alaric.

"No. It's like I blacked out and woke up three days later." He answered with a look at Jenna. "Katherine was there."

"She's under compulsion." Stefan replied. "Damon snuck her some vervain, but she can't leave until Klaus tell her she can."

"Which is a good thing in my opinion. Keeps the conniving, backstabbing, bitch away from me." Katie added as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Katie." Stefan sighed with an aggravated look at her. "That's not helping."

"Where is Damon?" Elena asked getting the attention off of Katie and the look that Elijah was giving Katie even though she couldn't see it.

"I saw him go upstairs." Jenna answered so Katie left them.

"So what else did I do?" Alaric asked getting a pointed look from Jenna.

"I think I'm going to sit this conversation out." Katie sighed as she stood up, not wanting to be witness to Jenna and Stefan telling Alaric what all he had done while Klaus had control of him.

Elijah found Katie in the kitchen munching on a bag of dill pickles potato chips. "May I ask you a question?" he asked as he stood on the other side if the bar.

"You just did." Katie told him with a smirk then stuck another chip in her mouth. He smirked back at her and she waved her hand for him to ask.

"Why do you hate Katerina so much?" he asked and Katie's eyes fell to the counter and she stopped chewing. "What did she do to you that was so bad?"

Katie finished the chips in her mouth and started rolling up the opening of the bag of chips. "Right before I turned I was in a car accident along with Tyler, Caroline and Matt. Caroline would have died and I would have either been paralyzed or stuck in a coma, but Damon gave us his blood and saved us."

"And Katherine killed you." he finished for her.

She turned away from him and opened the kitchen cabinet. "She killed me the night after it was confirmed that I was three weeks pregnant with Tyler's child." She stuck the bag of chips inside and turned back to him. "Damon could hear the second heartbeat, and that was before he healed me. So I know that she could hear it before she broke my neck."

Elijah was about so say something when she heard a commotion upstairs in Damon's room and whooshed away. She found Damon staring at Stefan and Elena, who was crying and wiping at blood on her mouth. Katie whooshed over to Damon and grabbed his wrist to see blood smeared on it. "What the hell, Damon!" she asked as she threw his arm to his side.

"I saved her life." He said with rage in his eyes not looking at Katie, but at Elena who was still on the floor coughing and wiping at her mouth.

"I told you she didn't want to be a vampire!" Katie yelled at him.

"She was so bent on dying, at lest this way I know she'll come back and you won't lose anyone." He told her.

"Don't act like you did this for me or for her! You did this for you, because you don't want to lose anyone!" Katie yelled at him then fell to the floor next to Elena.

"How could you of all people take that choice away from her?" Stefan asked leaving Elena since Katie was with her.

"Go ahead wish me an eternity of misery. Believe me you'll get over it." Damon told Stefan making him shove him across the room, breaking the wooden lamp that sat in the corner. Damon grabbed it and pinned Stefan to the wall with the lamp post pressed lengthwise across his neck. "Admit it. You just wish you had the balls to do it yourself."

Stefan shoved Damon and started wailing at his face, punching him over and over until he fell to the floor. Katie knew as soon as Damon's hand landed on the broken lamp post that he was going to stab Stefan. Out of reflex she didn't know she had, she shoved Stefan out of the way. The sharp end of the lamp post went through her side, and came out a few inches above her belly button.

Katie groaned in pain and stared at Damon's wide shocked eyes as she sank to her knees. "Get out of here!" Elena yelled at Damon as she ran to Katie's side.

"What happened?" she heard Elijah's accented voice from the door way and soon his face replaced Elena's in her line of vision.

"What the hell's goin' on?" Alaric asked as he and Jenna came into the room.

"Just get him out of here!" Elena yelled looking at Damon, her hand resting on Katie's back while Elijah wiped Katie's tears.

"Oh my god." Jenna said as she observed the stake sticking out of Katie.

Alaric tried to touch Damon, but he jerked his arm back and stared at Katie where she sat on her knees panting in pain until he was out of the room. "Okay, Jenna, downstairs in the basement are some blood bags. Go get them, now. Go." Jenna ran off.

Elijah grabbed the lamp post in one hand and pulled it out in one smooth motion. Katie screamed out and doubled over. Just as smoothly as he pulled the stake out he picked her up and laid her on the bed. "First time getting stabbed." Elijah asked as he sat down on the bed beside her.

She groaned, already healing slowly, as she pushed herself up to lean against the headboard. "I've been stabbed in the neck with a stake the size of a drum stick, but…" she winced and pressed her hand to her side, "That was child's play compared to this."

Jenna came in with three blood bags and handed them to Elijah. "Are you going to be okay?" she asked with a look at the blood on Katie's ruined shirt.

"Yeah. This should fix me right up." Katie told her as she took the blood bag from Elijah. "Thank you." Jenna nodded and walked back over to Alaric.

"Is there anything else we can do?" Alaric asked from where he and Jenna stood at the foot of the bed.

"Maybe find Damon?" she asked as she wiped the blood from her lips. "Make sure he knows I'm not mad at him for stabbing me. It was my fault, I shouldn't have intervened."

"Okay." Alaric told her with a nod then he and Jenna left her alone with Elijah.

"He stabs you and forces your friend to drink his blood and you're not mad at him?" Elijah asked, watching her suck down the blood bag.

"You know I can't even remember what this stuff tastes like when it's fresh." She said looking at the blood bag. When Elijah didn't say anything back Katie finally looked at him.

"You are avoiding my question." He pointed out and she sighed.

"I said I wasn't mad at him for stabbing me. I'm _pissed_ at him for what he did to Elena." She said then finished off the blood bag.

He popped the stopper out of the second one and handed it to her. "How are you feeling?" he asked and Katie picked up her shirt to see the exit hole was healed.

"Better." She answered and felt of her side to feel that it was healed too. "I hate being what I am sometimes, but I've gotta say…The quick healing part is kind of awesome." She turned to him and winced a little. "Still a touch sore though." She could tell by the look on his face as he opened his mouth that he was going to say something about Damon. "Don't." he closed his mouth and sighed. "Whatever you're about to say about Damon, don't say it."

"Okay. I won't say it." he told her and she gave him a not in thanks. "But I will say that if you insist on being with him would you do me a favor and stay out of his way. Just because you heal fast does not mean you should accept him hurting you."

Katie sighed and slid off of the bed, picking up her empty blood bags from the bed as she did. "If you'll excuse me I need to get cleaned up and change into something that doesn't have a bloody hole in it."

* * *

"Hello?" Katie heard Alaric call from downstairs. "Anybody home?"

Katie whooshed down and found him in the study. "Hey."

He jumped not having heard her walk up. "God, don't do that."

"Sorry." She laughed.

"Where is everybody?" he asked as Katie walked over to the decanter and poured herself a glass of bourbon.

"Elijah left when I started feeling better, and Jenna left when I was taking a shower. I don't know where Stefan, Elena or Damon are at." She answered then took a drink then headed to the parlor.

They had just walked past the front door when Stefan walked in. "Hey, there you are." Alaric greeted him.

Stefan looked around. "Where's Damon?"

"I don't know." Katie shrugged.

Stefan whipped out his phone and called Damon. "Bad time, Little Bro."

"What the hell are you doing?" Stefan asked.

"Saving the day. I figured you'd understand." Damon answered. "Just tell Elena to stay put."

"She's already gone, Damon." Stefan told him.

"What?" Damon asked.

"Klaus came. He took her." Stefan answered and Katie started biting her nails.

She heard Damon growl on the other end of the phone. "I'll take care of it."

"Well what the hell does that mean?" Katie asked letting her arms fall to the sides.

"It mean's you need to call Elijah." Stefan told her so she grabbed her phone and called him.

* * *

"The sacrifice is completed in stages as the full moon sets." Elijah told them as they got out of the car at the witch massacre house. "First the werewolf is killed, then the vampire then finally the doppelganger. Once Elena dies, the curse will be broken and Klaus with become a hybrid."

"So when do we attack?" Stefan asked from where he walked next to Elijah.

"Elena's death will activate his dormant werewolf side. He'll be vulnerable during the transformation." Elijah answered as they came to a stop outside the house. "That's where Bonnie comes in."

"And you're positive Bonnie will survive this?" Stefan asked and Katie looked at him, hoping he wasn't lying the whole time to get to this point.

"If she can deliver him to the brink of death, I'll finish the job myself." He answered.

Stefan's phone started ringing so he answered it. "Damon."

"You're not gonna like what I'm about to say." She heard Damon tell him.

"Cut to the chase. Is the sacrifice happening or not?" Stefan asked in no mood to beat around the bush.

"It's happening. I tried to stop it, but things got…complicated." Damon answered.

"We're sticking to the original plan. We're meeting Bonnie right now." Stefan told him.

"He's got Jenna, Stefan." Katie's shoulders slumped and faced dropped at his words.

"What?" Stefan asked as she turned and looked at Alaric.

"He got Katherine to lure her out of the house." Damon told him. "He's going to use her as the vampire in the ritual."

"What is it? What's wrong?" Alaric asked and Katie looked at him with wide, sad eyes.

"Klaus has Jenna." She told him. "He's planning on using her as the vampire in the ritual." Alaric ran his hand through his hair with a sigh. "But I'm not going to let that happen."

"What can you do to stop him?" Alaric asked.

"I'm going to offer him me." She answered getting shocked looks from all three of them.

"No, Katie I can't let you do that." Stefan told her as he hung up the phone.

"Nor can I." Elijah told her with a hard look.

"Look, I am the only one who can do this." She told Stefan then looked at Elijah. "If I die as long as you are alive I will come back. Klaus killed me before and he was trying to figure out where he knew me from when he was in Alaric's body. I'm sure he'll accept me in Jenna's place."

"Katie I just found you. I will not lose you now." Elijah stepped in front of her and placed his hand on the side of her neck.

"Elena has lost enough already. I will not let her lose the only guardian she has left. She may not be my family by blood but she's still family." She told him sternly. "I'll come back, just don't get yourself killed."

Elijah wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into him, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Fine."

"Then it's settled. I'm stepping in for Jenna." Katie confirmed with a look around to see that Alaric was gone and Bonnie walked out of the house.

"You're what?" Bonnie asked only having heard the end of the conversation. "Why did he take Jenna?"

"As punishment for meddling." Elijah answered.

"Klaus was going to use Tyler and Caroline." Stefan spoke up. "Damon rescued them."

"Then we need to go. Now. Before Jenna's been sacrificed." Bonnie told them. "I can kill Klaus myself."

"Bonnie we've been through this. We're not letting you die." Katie argued. "It's not going to happen." Katie shrugged at her.

"So you're going to die instead?" Bonnie asked.

"I'll be reincarnated again." Katie argued.

"Yeah in who knows how many years when Elena and I are dead." Bonnie argued.

"Look we can argue about this all night, but I'm taking Jenna's place and that is the end of it. Now can we please get a move on before we run out of time?" Katie asked getting aggravated.

"Yeah. Fine. Whatever." Bonnie told her with a glare then went inside with Elijah to do a locator spell leaving Katie and Stefan alone.

Stefan walked over to her. "You don't have to do this you know." He told her as he bumped her shoulder with his. "Losing you is going to hurt Elena just as much as losing Jenna."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather her lose me than another parent figure." She sighed. "And thanks to Damon she'll probably still be around when I come back." She sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"She's not the only one who will miss you." Stefan told her. "And I'm not just talking about Bonnie and Caroline." She looked across her shoulder at him, wishing he would stop talking. "Or Damon for that matter." She caught on that he was talking about him and he saw the light bulb above her head light up and gave her a sad smile. "I know we haven't been super close since you turned, but…I still consider you a friend."

Katie just gave him a smile and looked out at the moonlight lit trees in thought. "I uh…" she started as she turned toward him. "I never told you thank you for my birthday present."

Stefan smiled and looked down at the ground. "Damon told you, didn't he?" he asked and Katie nodded.

"I liked it, better than my gift from Tyler actually." Katie said with a frown then a smile.

"Yeah, who gets their girlfriend soap for their birthday?" Stefan asked with a laugh. "Was he trying to tell you that you stink?"

They were laughing when Elijah walked out of the house and over to them. "Bonnie did a locator spell. They're at Steven's Quarry." He informed them stopping just a few feet from them.

"Stefan and I will head there first?" Katie asked with a look at the two of them.

"Then you follow with Bonnie when it's time." Stefan confirmed with a nod.

"Just as the moon hit's it's final phase. She's to stay hidden until then." Elijah added. "He can not know that she's alive."

Katie took a deep breath and held it, trying to muster up some courage. "If Klaus doesn't accept Katie, I'll offer him me." Stefan told them with a look at Katie then Elijah then started walking in the direction of the quarry.

"You're very honorable." Elijah told Stefan.

Stefan stopped and walked back over to stand in front of Elijah. "Are you? Because this whole plan is, um… It's contingent upon your honor, Elijah."

"I won't fail you." he told him.

"Klaus is your brother. I know I've wanted to kill my brother a thousand times. I've never been able to." Stefan told him and Katie watched them talk.

"Well, Klaus was not my only brother. I had siblings; parents. I had a family. Over the centuries Klaus hunted them down one by one and he took them from me." Elijah told Stefan then looked at Katie's sympathetic eyes. "He scattered them across the seas where their bodies could not be found." He looked back at Stefan.

"You want revenge." Stefan stated.

Elijah looked at Katie and smirked then looked back at Stefan. "Sometimes there's honor in revenge, Stefan. I won't fail you."

"Please end this." Stefan told him then walked away.

"You should get going." Elijah told her as she walked up to him.

"If I'm going to die tonight, there's something I need to do first." She told him quietly as she grabbed the sides of his neck and stood on her tip toes, catching his lips with hers. He sighed into the kiss and wrapped his arms around her waist. Her hand slid over his jaw line as the kiss broke and she pulled back to look into his brown eyes that looked black in the night lighting. "I'll see you again, my love." She whispered then whooshed away to catch up to Stefan.

* * *

Katie stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ritual that looked to already be underway given the fact that Jules laid dead in the center of a burned out circle. Elena and Jenna sat in the middle of their own flaming circles. "I don't recall you being on the guest list, Love." Klaus said then looked up at Katie.

"I just want to talk." She told him, keeping her voice strong despite the fact that she was shaking in her boots on the outside.

"Very well then." He said the vamped up to her, grabbed her shoulders, then vamped them back down to the ritual site. "Hello Katie. Or should I call you Hannah?" he asked with a smirk.

"So you remember me?" she asked keeping her face hard.

"Yes, if I remember correctly I ripped your head off with my bare hands." He told her with a smile. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"I came to ask you not to kill Jenna. Let me take her place." She said not losing her strength or tall stature.

"I don't know." He drawled looking like he was thinking about it. "The last time I killed you my brother didn't speak to me for at least a decade."

"Is that really so long in the grand scheme of things?" Katie asked. "Besides I'm in love with Damon."

"That's besides the point." He told her then smiled a devious smile. "Plus I have feeling Damon won't be with us much longer."

"What did you do to him?" Katie asked getting mad as Klaus walked around her. She didn't bother turning to face him.

"I didn't do anything to him," she felt his chest against her back as he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "But I'm sure you'll find out everything you need to know in the morning."

"What?" Katie asked, but before she could turn around to face him he stabbed her in the back with a thick stake then broke it off even with her skin.

"No!" Elena cried as Katie sank to her Knees in pain.

"Don't worry Elena." Klaus told her as he walked around Katie. "I need her alive, but for now…" Klaus turned and grabbed Katie's head in one hand and with a simple flick of his wrist, broke her neck making Katie's world go black.

* * *

Katie woke up to the sounds of Klaus screaming and Bonnie chanting. A searing pain shot through her aching back when the stake was removed and she looked up to see Damon walk over to Stefan who was lying next to her and pull a stake from his back as well. "Damon." Katie sighed as she stood on her knees then he helped her stand up. He turned back to his brother.

"I need you to get Elena out of here." Stefan told him.

"What about you?" Damon asked him then looked at Katie.

"I'm not leaving until he's dead." Stefan told him. "Go."

"I'm not leaving either. I'll be okay, just get Elena somewhere safe." Katie told him agreeing with Stefan and he nodded then headed over to Elena.

Katie and Stefan walked over to Bonnie who had stopped torturing Klaus so that Elijah, who walked over to his brother lying on the ground, could finish him off. "Elijah?" Klaus asked.

"Hello, brother." Elijah answered back then slammed his fist into Klaus' chest. Klaus screamed out. "In the name of our family, Niklaus…"

"I didn't bury them at sea!" Klaus pleaded.

Elijah paused, "What?"

"Their bodies are safe." Elijah stared at him. "If you kill me you'll never find them."

"Elijah, don't listen to him." Stefan pleaded.

Elijah look at Stefan, then Katie, then back at his brother. "I can take you to them." Elijah stared at him still. "I give you my word, Brother."

"Do it or I'll take you both out." Bonnie warned him.

"You'll die." Elijah warned her.

"I don't care." Bonnie answered back.

"Elijah, please." Katie pleaded with her words and her eyes.

"I'm sorry." Elijah grabbed Niklaus and whooshed away.

* * *

Katie walked into Damon's bedroom and saw him standing in front of his mirror fixing the collar of his dress shirt. "I'm guessing Stefan has already told you that I offered to take Jenna's place?"

"Yeah he did and I gave him a piece of my mind for not stopping you." He answered as he turned to look at her. "What the hell were you thinking?" He asked with furious eyes.

"That unlike Jenna, I would come back." She answered. "If I die I will be reincarnated again. I will come back to you." She told him with wide, pleading eyes.

"No, you would come back to Elijah. Your link is to him. The first person you'd remember after Klaus killing you agan would be Elijah, not me." He pointed out getting in her face. "Not to mention that you are the last of your bloodline and we don't know if you can be reincarnated into someone who isn't related to you." Katie blinked up at him with tears pooling in her eyes. "You didn't stop to think about any of that did you?"

"No." She answered quietly. "I didn't."

"Well you should have." He told her as he unbuttoned the cuff buttons on the sleeve of his dress shirt. "Because I don't think I can go through this without you." Katie gave him a confused look as she watched him roll up his sleeve.

"No." Her voice was unnaturally high pitched as tears started sliding down her cheeks at the sight of his reddened, decaying arm. "No, no, no. Not you." Katie cried and Damon pulled his sleeve back down and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "Jules or Tyler?" she asked, her tears soaking into his shirt.

"Tyler. It was just a nip, but…it still counts as a bite I guess." He sighed and she pulled back to look into his eyes. He could see the question she was about to ask. "No. You're not going to go to Elijah about this."

"Why not, Damon? He said there was a cure, maybe I'll have time to get it this time." She argued.

"No, Katie. No one else needs to know about this." Damon argued back.

"So you're just going to let yourself die when we know there is a cure out there?" Katie argued and Damon shushed her.

"Lower your voice." He warned her. "If I promise to help you find the cure after the funeral will you calm down and keep this between you and me fore right now?"

"Fine." She told him then threw herself into his arms. "I refuse to lose you." she told him as she pulled back and grabbed his face in her hands. "You hear me? It's not going to happen."

"I hear you Katie Cat." He sighed then pressed his lips to hers and wrapped his arms around her waist.

* * *

Katie stood next to Damon as they walked with the rest of her friends to the Gilbert graves. As she watched Elena put a rose on each of her parents graves and Alaric place a second rose on Jenna's fresh grave, Katie couldn't help but feel like she should be putting a rose on Damon's grave. Damon kissed her temple then walked off into the distance. Stefan followed him and Katie knew he was going to tell Stefan. "Hey," Bonnie said getting her attention, "we're going to head back to Elena's. You coming?"

"No. I uh, I have something I need to do first. I'll be by later though." She told her with a solemn look.

Not knowing where to start looking for Elijah, she simply got in her car and closed her eyes. She knew that if she called to him he would somehow know where she was. So she called to him hoping that she could somehow follow the link. After a few minutes she started to feel him too and eventually she could tell exactly how far away he was and that he was traveling towards mystic falls.

So she cranked her car and headed toward him, feeling the link like an invisible string tied between them. The closer she got to him the more she could tell exactly where he was heading, Alaric's loft.

She ended up beating them there and when she opened the door she found Stefan and Katherine inside. "Katie, what are you doin' here?" Stefan asked as she walked inside.

"I followed my link to Elijah. He should be here any second. What are you doing here?" she asked in confusion. "How's Damon?"

"Bonnie did a séance. She heard the witches say Klaus'." He told her and avoided her second question.

She was about to grill him, but Klaus walked into the open door with Elijah right behind him. "You two just keep popping up don't you?" Klaus asked seeing Katie and Stefan.

"We need your help…for my brother." Stefan told him while Katie was having trouble taking her eyes off of Elijah.

"Well, whatever it is, he's gonna have to wait a tick." Klaus told him. "You see, I have an obligation to my brother that requires my immediate attention." He walked around the three of them.

Elijah walked over to Katie and Stefan. "You understand how important family is or you wouldn't be here. My brother gave me his word that he would reunite me with my own."

None of them saw Klaus whoosh behind Elijah until he said, "and so I shall" then stabbed Elijah in the chest with a dagger.

Both Elijah and Katie screamed out in pain. Katie fell to her knees, the pain so intense she couldn't breathe. "No." Katie gasped looking at Elijah lying on the floor, his skin grey and veiny. Her glaring eyes moved to Klaus who was looking down at her with a smirk. She whooshed at him with savage eyes, but Stefan caught her around her waist, stopping her. "Why spare me if you were just going to dagger him the first chance you got!?" Katie yelled at him, fighting Stefan's grasp on her.

"Because, love, he won't stay dead forever. Besides you're in love with Damon. Remember?" he asked and the veins appeared under her eyes that were turning red.

Stefan whooshed her out of the apartment. "Go home." He told her as he pinned her to the wall with his hands on her shoulders.

"No." Katie practically growled.

"Damon tried to kill himself." He told her and the veins disappeared from under her eyes.

"What?" she asked shocked.

"He's locked in the basement to keep him from hurting himself. He needs you and you need to be with him." Stefan told her as he looked into her eyes to get his words to sink in. "We both know you won't forgive yourself if he dies and you're not there. Go." Katie nodded so Stefan let her go.

* * *

Katie was heading to the basement when she ran into Alaric. "Stefan put you on suicide watch too?" Katie asked they headed down the stairs. She had a cool wet rag and a bottle of water while Alaric held a glass and a bottle of bourbon.

"Something like that." Alaric sighed.

"Would you mind doing me a favor and locking me in there with him?" she asked as they came to the cell he was locked in.

"Why so he can stab you again?" he asked and Katie rolled her eyes.

"Can we let that go please?" she asked as she pulled the latch open and stepped inside. Alaric closed the door behind her.

"Katie." Damon groaned. "You went to Elijah, didn't you?"

"Yep, fat lot of good it did. Klaus daggered him." she answered as she kneeled down beside him, lifted up his head and placed the rag on his hot neck.

"Well that looks bad." Alaric commented from the small window in the metal door.

"If feels worse." Damon answered as Katie moved to sit across from him, leaning back against the wall. "My subconscious is haunting me, Ric." Damon looked at the door to see Alaric set down the glass and Damon's daylight ring. "Please tell me you have something for that."

"Double shot." Alaric answered as he poured bourbon in the glass.

"That's good." Damon groaned and stumbled up and over to the door where he put his ring on then grabbed the glass. "So my brother sent you two for suicide watch?"

"He's just trying to help." Alaric answered.

"He's doing what he always does, trying to right the wrongs of the past." Damon said then doubled over in pain and started coughing. "You should want me dead. I'm the reason Jenna got killed."

"Damon you should sit down. Conserve your energy." Katie told him as she stood up and placed her hand on his back.

"I don't blame you for Jenna." Alaric told him then took a drink from the bottle in his hand.

Damon let Katie help him sit on the large rock in the room. "Oh, sure you do. Let's not forget I turned your wife into a vampire. You must really hate me for that one."

"Okay, give me your glass. Neither one of us is drunk enough for this conversation." Rick told him and Katie reached for Damon's glass, but he grabbed it first and walked over to the door.

Damon finished off his glass then grabbed Alaric's neck. "Kill me. Please."

"Damon, let him go!" Katie grabbed his arm and tried to make him let him go, but he wouldn't.

"Screw you." Alaric rasped then stabbed Damon in the arm with a vervain dart.

"No." Damon groaned and let go of Alaric. "Katie."

"I'm right here." She told him as she eased him down to sit on the dirty floor. "He needs blood." Katie told Rick who nodded and headed to the deep freezer.

Katie was brushing Damon's hair back out of his face when she heard Sheriff Forbes voice outside the cell. A male deputy's face appeared at the window of the door. "Sheriff Forbes, over here."

The sheriff's face replaced the deputy's. "Please, don't open that door." Katie begged, but she slid that latch on the door and opened it any way. "Damon's not in his right mind." She told her holding her hands up while she sheriff held a gun on her. "He-" she started as if to keep pleading with her then knocked the gun out of her hand and threw her to the floor. Damon whooshed out of the room as a deputy stabbed Katie in the arm with a vervain dart, but she had built up enough of a tolerance that it didn't bring her down too much. She threw him to the floor and whooshed after Damon.

She managed to follow him to the town square, where she lost him. "Damn it Damon." She sighed as she tucked her hair behind her ear and listened. "No, Damon, no." she heard Elena's voice and whooshed over to them to see him feeding on Elena.

"Damon, stop!" Katie snapped and Damon turned to look at her. Elena's blood on his face as he sank to his knees. Elena fell to her knees next to him, pressing her hand to her neck. "We have to get him home." Katie told her as she wrapped her arms around Damon and pulled him up, but he couldn't stand. So Katie scooped him up bridal style. "Do you have your car?"

"Yeah, it's this way." Elena nodded and jerked her head for her to follow her.

"Did he hurt anyone else?" Katie asked as she laid Damon in the back seat then slid in after him, laying his head in her lap.

"Katie?" Damon asked weakly.

"Yeah, it's me. I'm here. I've got you." Katie told him, brushing her hand over his cheek.

"No, just me. I think he thought I was Katherine." Elena told her as she started the car.

"Elena?" Damon asked looking toward the driver's seat.

"I'm here too, Damon. You're safe." she told him without looking away from the road.

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

"It's okay. We're going to get you home." Elena replied with a look back at him.

* * *

Katie sat on Damon's bed, her back resting on the headboard with Damon laying on her with his back against her chest and her arms wrapped around him. Elena brought over a cool wet rag and placed it on his sweaty forehead. "Thanks." Katie told her with a smile as she placed her hand over the rag, holding it in place.

"No problem." Elena answered back with a sad smile.

"Elena, get out of here. I could hurt you." Damon told Elena who still stood beside the bed.

"No, you won't." Elena argued.

"Elena he's right." Katie spoke up. "You saw how bad it got with Rose."

"I'm not leaving him." Elena argued.

"I'll give you a few minutes." Katie told her as she slid out from under Damon as gently as she could then laid him back on the pillows. "But seriously, after that you need to get out of here." She gave her a warning look that told her she would forcibly remove her if she had to as she walked out of the room and downstairs.

She heard him coughing and groaning in pain as Elena shushed him and told him it's okay. "It's not okay." Damon argued. "All those years I blamed Stefan. No one forced me to love her." Katie new he was talking about Katherine and she started picking at her cuticles. "It was my own choice. I made the wrong choice. Tell Stefan I'm sorry, okay?"

She heard Elena take in a deep breath. "I will."

Not being able to handle not being with him Katie headed back upstairs. She found Elena lying beside him, one of her arms behind him, holding the rag to his head while the other rested on his chest. "Katie." Damon sighed and motioned her over weakly.

"I'll leave you two alone." Elena told her as she slid from the bed and handed her the rag.

Katie moved around to the right side of the bed and slid over next to him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. "I'm not gonna lie, I just had a flashback of walking in on Katherine trying to seduce you."

"I know, I saw the jealousy in your eyes." he told her quietly. "You don't have to be jealous of her."

Katie pushed herself up on her elbow to look at him. "All my life either Elena or Caroline ended up with what I wanted. As much as I love them, I'll always be jealous of them and maybe even a little paranoid that they will unintentionally take what is already is mine." She placed her hand on his sweaty neck and rubbed it with her thumb. "And I love you more than anything else, so I can't help but be jealous of her. Especially since I know you two are friends. Guys tend to not stay just friends with her for long."

Damon lifted his hand weakly and brushed his thumb over her cheek. "I've made a lot of choices that have gotten me here. I deserve this." Katie's eyes watered and a knot grew in her throat. "I deserve to die."

Katie placed her hand over his on her cheek and shook her head. "No, you don't and you're not going to." Katie cried.

"I do, Katie Cat, and it's okay." He told her wiping at a tear with his thumb. "'Cause if I would have chosen differently I never would have met you." Katie's eyes slipped shut and she took a deep breath, trying not to be a sobbing mess for Damon's sake. "I'm sorry. I've done so many things to hurt you and the people we care about."

"I forgive you. I always do." He smiled sadly and he smiled back.

"I know you love Elijah, but I want to thank you for choosing me." He told her, fighting to keep his eyes open. Not being able to speak she took his hand from her face to kiss the backs of his fingers. "You have no idea how much that means to me." He told her making a tears slip down her cheek. "I love you, Katie Cat, and I'm sorry I never took you out on a real date."

"I love you too, so much." She told him as she leaned down and pressed her lips to his. Tears slipping from her eyes to land on his cheeks. When then kiss broke she pressed her forehead to his. "Who needs a real date when we have epic high-school dances?"

Damon laughed only for it to end in a groan. "Don't let me interrupt." They thought it was Elena, but when Katie looked up from Damon she saw Elena and Katherine standing in the doorway. "It's not like I brought the cure or anything." She walked over to the bed and sat down on it as she took the cork out of the bottle of blood.

"You got free." Damon said weakly.

"Yep. Finally." She answered as she put the bottle to his lips and poured the blood into his mouth.

"And you still came here?" he asked as Katherine cupped his cheek in her hand making Katie see red.

"I owed you one." Katherine answered then patted his cheek and stood up.

"Where's Stefan?" Elena asked as Katherine turned to her.

"Are you sure you care?" Katherine asked.

"Where is he?" Elena asked harshly.

"He's paying for this." She answered holding up the bottle of blood. "He gave himself over to Klaus. I wouldn't expect him anytime soon."

"What do you mean he gave himself over?" Elena asked.

"He just sacrificed everything to save his brother, including you." she told her with her usual snotty tone. "Goodbye Elena." She started to walk away then said, "Oh," and turned back. She looked at Katie then slowly slid her eyes to Elena. "It's okay to love them both. I did." She tossed Elena the bottle then whooshed away.

"What the hell did she mean by that?" Katie asked with a look at Elena.

"She's just messing with your heads." Damon groaned as he sat up, already feeling better. "Ignore her."

"I'm gonna go see if I can get in touch with Stefan." Elena said as she walked out of the room leaving Katie and Damon alone.

* * *

"I promise this is the last time I'm going to ask." Katie said as Damon stepped out of the shower. "How do you feel?"

"I feel fine." He told her as he walked over and rested his hands on her shoulders tiredly. "And like I could sleep for a week straight." He added with a small laugh then headed over to the bed and flopped down on it quickly falling asleep. "Katie brushed his wet hair to the side and kissed his forehead then left him to sleep.

**A/N:** So... how was it?


	27. Chapter 27

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 27**

Alaric spoke to one of his buddies at Duke University and got Katie into a three week medical internship program for students who want to peruse a career in the medical field. While she was there, away from Mystic Falls and the vampire/werewolf craziness, she started to change. She felt free and more herself than she had in a long time. It only made her more eager and excited to get into college and out of Mystic Falls.

Her third day there they were given a tour of the nearby hospital's neonatal unit and nursery. "Babies who are not held, nuzzled, and hugged enough can stop growing and if the situation lasts long enough, the baby may even die." The instructor who was leading around the group of students told them where they stood in the middle of the room full of clear hospital bassinets and incubators, a few of which held babies. "Baby Smith here is a prime example." She told them as she walked over to a bassinet with a baby inside wrapped up like a burrito in a white hospital blanket. "Her father signed all rights over before she was born and her mother passed away during the birth."

"So she's orphaned." Katie was talking more to herself than the nurse, but she caught the nurse's attention.

"Yes." The instructor answered. "What is your name?"

"Katie." She answered.

"Katie, would you like to hold her?" she asked putting Katie on the spot. "She needs all the love she can get." Katie just nodded and stepped through the group to the hospital bassinet. "Do you know how to hold her?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Katie answered with a smile down at the baby as she gently slid her hand under her head and another under her back. As she picked up the tiny baby and moved her into the crook of her arm, making sure to support her head, it started crying. "Hey, sweetheart, no tears." Katie told the baby softly temporarily forgetting about the other people in the room. "I got you, it's alright." She started gently bouncing the baby, humming a lullaby and the baby's cries quieted.

"You have the magic touch. Baby Smith usually cries the whole time she's being held." The instructor told her with an impressed look. "Does anyone else want to give it a try?" Katie almost didn't want to let the baby go, but she knew she had too.

-That night—

~Dream~

Elijah opened the door of their cabin, letting Fiona, who was cradling a six month old baby in her arms, inside. "He is absolutely perfect." Hannah gushed as she caught sight of the little boy's dark complected face that was surrounded by a soft hand made blanket.

Elijah moved behind her and took a peek at the baby over her shoulder. "Hannah is right, as usual." He told Fiona then looked at Hannah with a look that said he was kidding with her. "May I?" he asked with a motion to the baby.

"Of course." Fiona told him then passed him the baby.

The sight of Elijah, a strong man that some would call a monster, holding something as small and fragile as a baby caused Hannah's heart to skip a beat. Fiona saw the look on her friend's face and nudged her shoulder with hers. "Do you need this?" she asked holding burp cloth out to her.

Hannah blushed and slapped it away. "Oh stop it."

"You know," Fiona started with a look between Elijah and Hannah as she sat down that the dining table, "Julie over at the inn is in bad health and looking for someone to take in her two year old if you two would like to consider it."

"Oh, Fiona, I don't…" Hanna drawled with an unsure look at Elijah.

"We will talk about it." he told Fiona surprising the hell out of Hannah. Elijah's eyes found Hannah's before he looked back down at the baby in his arms and started talking to him in a soft voice that made Hannah smile.

~End of Dream~

The whole time she was gone she dreamed of Elijah.

* * *

Katie walked into the boarding house to find that, nothing had changed. That was until she walked into the parlor and saw Damon, covered in soap suds while wrapping a red throw blanket around his hips and Elena stood across from him covering her eyes. "What's going on here?" she asked a little shocked at the scene.

"Elena doesn't know how to knock." Damon answered with a smirk. "I thought she was you."

"He's covered now. You can put your hand down." Katie told Elena who peeked through her fingers then dropped her hand as Damon walked over and kissed Katie on the cheek.

"Sheriff Forbes gave us another location to check." Elena told Damon as she pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket then held it out to him as Katie ducked under his arm and he wrapped it around her shoulders. "Memphis."

"Another dead end, you mean?" he asked as he took it from her.

"You don't know that." Elena told him.

"You're right, Elena. This could be the one." Damon told her. "After almost two months this could be the clue that tells us Stefan's alive and well and living in Graceland."

"Fine. I'll go by myself." Elena took the paper from him and walked around him, but he whooshed in front of her and took the paper.

"And let Klaus know that you're tracking him? He thinks you're dead. Let's keep it that way." He told her as he looked at the paper.

"It's a new lead, Damon." Elena argued. "We haven't had one in a while."

"Okay. I'll check it out. If I find anything, I'll call you." he told her then turned around and walked off leaving Katie alone with Elena.

"So, how was med. camp?" Elena asked with a sigh and an aggravated look on her face.

"Good. I'm going to be a pediatrician." She answered getting a raised brow look from Elena.

"Really?" Elena said as she pulled the ponytail holder out of her hair making it fall around her shoulders.

"Yep." She said with a shrug as she watched Elena gather her hair back up and tie it back up into a ponytail. "Are you excited about your birthday party tonight?"

"I don't even want a party. Caroline is-"

"Being Caroline?" Katie asked with a smile and Elena nodded. "It's happening, so the least you can do is make an appearance and eat a piece of the cake I'm making you."

"Wait, you're making the cake?" Elena asked as Katie headed into the kitchen to get to work.

"Yep, you said no gifts so I'm making you something you can't say no to and it's not technically a gift if everyone enjoys it." she told her as she started looking around the kitchen for cake pans.

"Since when do you cook?" Elena asked as she sat down in one of the barstools.

"If you ask Elijah you might have to run to the store and buy a second one, but that was before these were invented." She told her as she grabbed the chicken shaped timer and set in within arms reach. "So I guess the answer to your question would be since about freshman year, home economics." Katie said as she slammed a cabinet door shut. "How is it possible that there isn't a single cake pan is this big ass kitchen?" she turned around to see Elena looking at her. "What?"

"Do miss him?" she asked making Katie give her a confused shake of her head. "Elijah. That's at least the fiftieth time you've mentioned him this summer."

"I've been at a medical camp half the summer and a lot of medical emergencies happened when we were together. It's just drumming up old memories." She answered truthfully as she tapped her ear and pointed up.

"Have you heard from Bonnie recently?" Elena asked getting the hint that Katie wanted to change the subject.

"I talked to her this morning. She compared her father's family to wet paint that never dries." Katie answered as she pulled her car keys out of her pocket. "I have to go buy cake pans you wanna tag along or…"

"No, Caroline is on her way over with Tyler to decorate." Elena answered so Katie waved over her shoulder and left.

TVDTVDVD

Katie worked on the cake all day and was putting the finishing touches on it when people started showing up for the party. "Are you done with that yet?" Caroline asked as she walked into the kitchen to see Katie still slaving away over the cake.

Katie ignored her and finished writing Elena's name in cursive with black icing. "Done." She stood up and motioned to the cake with the hand that wasn't holding the icing bag. "What do you think?"

Caroline walked around the white three tiered, topsy turvy cake covered with pink and black poke-a-dots glaring at it with her appraising eyes. "A professional could have done it better, but I think Elena will like it."

"Okay, now that I have your seal of approval I'm going to go get dressed. Make sure no one messes with this please." Katie didn't wait to hear what Caroline had to say as she headed up to her room to change.

She was straightening the neckline of her white, spaghetti strap sundress with a scoop neck and a floral print of small red flowers, when Damon walked into her room. "I missed you." he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder.

As Katie turned in his arms a hard box in his pocket brushed her leg. "What's this?" she asked tapping it with her finger.

"Elena's birthday gift." He answered as he stood up straight and pulled a small black box out of his pocket then opened it for her to see Elena's necklace that Stefan had given her laying on a pad of white fluff. "Alaric found it in his apartment. I thought it might make her feel like she still has a piece of Stefan."

"That's sweet of you." Katie thought out loud then walked over to her dresser and grabbed a pair of small silver hoop earrings off of it. "So how was the road trip?"

"Interesting." He told her. "Stefan killed two people, but the interesting part is there was a secret werewolf holding cell under the house." He didn't give her a chance to say anything before he said, "I'll meet you down at the party." as he tucked the box back into his pocket and left the room. Katie couldn't help letting her ears follow Damon up to Stefan's room where Elena had been getting ready. "I got you something." She heard him tell her. "I know I promised not to buy you anything. So don't worry I didn't pay for it."

"You stole it?" Elena asked and Katie rolled her eyes.

"No." Damon told her with a scoff. "I found it."

"My necklace." Elena said quietly. "I thought I'd never see it again."

"Alaric found it in his loft. I figured you'd be happy to get it back." he told her.

"I am happy." Katie could hear the sad, but slightly happy tone in Elena's voice. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Damon told her.

Katie left her bedroom just as she heard them walking by and a little jealousy shot through her when she saw Elena's arm looped through Damon's. He could see it on her face so he held his other arm out to her. She took it, but as soon as they were at the bottom of the stairs she let go and headed to the kitchen to make sure no one had messed with the cake. However when she got in the kitchen she found that it was gone.

Worried she headed to the parlor where she saw Elena and Caroline getting a cup of beer from the keg in the corner. "Caroline!" Katie called getting Caroline's attention so as soon as she could Caroline and Elena headed over to her where she stood on the steps.

"I moved the cake to the laundry room." she told her then offered her a cup of beer.

"Thank god." Katie sighed as she took the cup from her. "Where's Damon?"

"I think I saw him go outside with Alaric." Elena answered.

"Happy birthday by the way." Katie told Elena then looked at Caroline. "I'm gonna go see if Damon wants to dance."

She found Damon and Alaric out back sitting on the brick half wall between the cement and the grass. "How was the internship at Duke?" Alaric asked when he saw her walk up. "Did you decide if med. school was right for you?"

"Yep. You're looking at a future pediatrician." She told him with a proud smile.

"My girl, the future doctor." Damon said as he grabbed her hips and pulled her to stand between his knees as he pulled her in for a kiss.

"Hey, can you keep the p.d.a. to a minimum please?" Ric complained and Katie laughed as she moved to sit beside Damon on the brick wall.

Before she could ask Damon to dance Elena walked out, said "Drink", grabbed the glass of bourbon out of Damon's hand and took a large drink. "Jeremy's smoking again."

"Is his stash any good?" Damon asked getting a slap on the arm from Katie.

"You're an ass." Elena told him with a pissed off look then turned her eyes to Alaric. "Talk to him, please. He looks up to you." she put the glass in Damon's hand spilling it everywhere.

"You're screwed." Damon told Alaric who just shook his head.

Katie nudged Damon with her shoulder to get his attention and he looked over at her. "Wanna dance?"

"Na, I'm good." He told her then refilled his glass with the bottle that was sitting between him and Alaric.

Katie sighed in disappointment. "Okay then. I'm going to go get another beer." She said more to herself than him as she hopped down off the wall and headed inside. She had gotten a refill and was headed to her room to change shoes because the ones she was wearing were impractically high heeled when she saw Caroline leaning on the wall watching Tyler and Slutty Sophie dancing as she drank straight from the bottle. "Would you two just hook up already and get it over with?" Katie asked getting Caroline's attention.

"He's had all summer to do something about us." Caroline told her. "Besides, it's…complicated."

"Okay," Katie started as she walked up the steps to stand beside her and watch people dancing on the dance floor, "weren't you the one that told him you didn't want to go there after he kiss you?" Katie asked getting a look from Caroline across her shoulder. "You are also the one that said and I quote, It's easy. Boy likes girl, girl likes boy. Sex."

Caroline laughed remembering that she told Elena the same thing when she first met Stefan. "That's not exactly one of my best quotes."

"Either way the ball is in your court now. Pick it up and take a shot." Katie told her with a smile and a pat on her shoulder as she headed up to her room. She expected to find some random couple making out on her bed, but instead she found Stefan, sitting at her desk reading her journal. "Stefan?"

He looked up at her with an emotionless face then whooshed over to her and stabbed her in the neck with a vervain dart causing her body to grow weak. It effected her more than it should have considering she ran out of vervain two weeks into her trip and hadn't had a chance to drink any since she got back. She stumbled to her bed and grabbed the post of the footboard, holding herself up. "Hello, Katie."

"Why are you doing this?" She groaned.

"Because I need to send a clear message to my brother." He told her as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"What message?" she asked quietly.

"He and Elena need to let me go." He told her in a matter of fact tone "Just like you need to let him go."

"What?" she asked with a weak frown.

"I thought I heard you kiss Elijah before we went to Klaus." He grabbed her journal and held it up. "I was right. You need to let Damon go. The longer you draw this out the more it's going to hurt him." He told her as he pushed buttons on his phone. Before he could hit the call button Damon walked into the room and Stefan grabbed Katie, holding her back to his chest with his arm wrapped around her chest. "Hello brother."

"Stefan." Damon greeted him worriedly. "What did you do to her?"

"Vervain." He answered as if it was obvious.

"I swear if you hurt her…" Damon threatened.

"Now that I have your attention." Stefan said making Damon look back at him. "I need you to stop following me. It's causing some…problems."

Katie, growing weaker and weaker as the vervain spread through her system, couldn't hold her head up any longer and it fell limply back onto Stefan's shoulder. "With who, Klaus? I'm supposed to care what he thinks?" unlike Katie, Damon could see the stake in Stefan's hand and knew that if he made even one move toward her Stefan would stab her and possibly kill her.

"What you're supposed to do…is let me go." Stefan answered as Katie's eye's slipped shut, slowly losing consciousness.

"I've got a birthday girl downstairs that isn't going to let me do that." Damon answered.

Stefan stabbed her in the side with the thick stake making her wake up and scream. "I said…let me go." He let Katie fall to the floor then whooshed out the window.

Damon pulled the stake out of her side making her scream again before she passed out. Damon sighed and picked her up in his arms. He laid her on her bed and brushed her hair out of her face. He tore a clean page from the notebook on her desk, wrote her a note and left it on her bedside table incase she woke up and he wasn't there. Reluctantly he headed down stairs to make sure Stefan hadn't gotten to Elena.

When Katie woke up she saw the note. "Went to find Elena." She read then tossed the paper to the side as she stood up and walked over to her door. The party was still going on, but as she pulled the door open Damon and Elena's voice's hit her ears and she stopped. "All summer, every single time I came to you with a lead you made me feel like an idiot for having hope." She heard Elena saying.

"You were an idiot. We both were." Damon told her as Katie made her way toward Damon's room.

"Tell me what you know." Elena demanded and Katie could tell just by the tone of her voice that she was really upset with him as she should be.

"I know you need to get back to your party, Elena." He told her dismissively.

"We're supposed to be in this together. Why didn't you tell me you've been tracking Klaus' victims?" Elena told him.

"Because they're not Klaus' victims, Elena, they're Stefan's!" Damon snapped at her.

"What?"

"He's left a trail of body parts up and down the eastern seaboard." Damon told her, his voice agitated.

"No. You're wrong."

"I've seen it happen before. He's flipped the switch, to full-blown ripper!" Damon practically yelled at her and Katie wanted to step in, but she knew Elena needed to hear what he was telling her.

"Stop it Damon."

"No you stop, Elena. Stop looking for him. Stop waiting for him to come home. Just stop!" instead of standing out in the hallway eavesdropping Katie went back to her room to wait for them to get done arguing. "Stefan's gone and he's not coming back. Not in your lifetime."

Katie didn't know where Damon went from there, but he didn't come to her. So she headed down to the party that was almost over and started compelling people with the line, "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here".

She was picking up the plastic cups and trash that lay around when she heard Damon destroying Stefan's room. Deciding that it would be best if she didn't interrupt she kept cleaning. She was picking up the study when Damon found her. "What are you doin'?"

"Cleaning. This place is disgusting." She shoved a plate with half a piece of cake on it into the black trash bag she held in her hand.

"That's what maids and compulsion are for." He took the trash bag out of her hand and tossed it to the floor. "Come shower with me. You still have blood on your shirt." His hands found her hips and pulled her into him. "How long have you been awake?"

"Since you and Elena started fighting about you keeping secrets from her all summer." She answered as she lifted her eyes to his. "I guess I really could use a shower."

* * *

"Are you okay?" Katie's eyes didn't look at his, but at her hand that rested on his chest, knowing their conversations like these usually went better without eye contact. "I heard you in Stefan's room earlier."

"It's been a long time since Stefan and I had been as close as we have been recently. I screwed everything up." He answered.

"You didn't screw everything up." She told him as she trailed her fingers down the center dip of his abs. "It wasn't your fault Tyler bit you. I never thanked you for saving him and Caroline. I know you mainly did it to try to stop the sacrifice, but it still mean's a lot."

"You need to stop…just stop trying to make me feel better about this." Damon snapped at her. "Stefan is gone because of me."

"Stefan may be gone and he may be off the rails, but he is alive." Katie sat up and looked at him with insistent, stubborn eyes. "Had you not done what you did not knowing you would get bit, my friends would be dead. _Dead_, Damon. It sucks that Elena may never see Stefan again, but one of these day you and I will and well go Lexi 2.0 on his ass as soon as we do."

"Katie, he vervained you and staked you in the side." Damon argued.

"But he didn't kill me. If he was really as gone as he wants us to believe he would have killed me." She argued. "I will help you get him back even if it means I get staked in the side a thousand times over. Hope isn't lost, Damon, not yet."

"Either way I'm done chasing him." Damon's words made Katie breathe in a deep breath then led it out as she nodded.

* * *

Katie woke up from another Elijah dream to the smell of burning paper and sat up in bed with a sigh as she saw Damon throwing his research on Klaus and Stefan into the lit fireplace. "Are you sure you want to do that?" Katie said as she grabbed one of his shirts out of his dresser and pulled it over her head. "Maybe you should sleep on it. You might change your mind and decided to not give up on him."

"I have slept on it, Katie. Last night, nothings changed and nothing is going to change. So Let it go." He told her not looking at her.

"Okay." She sighed as she held her hands up in surrender then headed to her room to get dressed.

* * *

She was sitting on the couch in the living room reading a book when Damon walked over and sat down next to her. When she didn't look up from her book he started walking his fingers up her hand and over her arm. She smiled but didn't look at him so he grabbed the book out of her hand and tossed it across the room. She laughed as he grabbed her by her shoulders and moved her to straddle his lap. "Are you bored?" she asked as he slid his hands up her sides. He hummed as she started unbuttoning his shirt then grabbed his sides and caught his lips in a kiss.

He had moved her around to lie on the couch when his phone started ringing. He ignored it, but as soon as it was done ringing it started up again. So he pulled it out of his back pocket with an aggravated groan and answered it. "Bad time Ric." Damon told him as Katie started kissing his neck, not paying attention to Alaric. "She what?" Damon's change in tone made her stop and pull back to look at his eyes, wide with worry and aggravation. "Yeah we're headed your way." Damon told him as he got off of Katie and hung up the phone. "Stefan and Klaus are in the Smokey Mountains. Elena talked Alaric into going with her to find Stefan." he told her as he headed to the door.

"Is she insane?" Katie asked as she stood up and rushed after him.

"She has to be because I'm about two seconds away from locking her in a padded cell." He said as he walked over to his car and pulled the door open as Katie opened the passenger door. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going with you." she told him as if it were obvious.

"No. Tonight is a full moon and we will be in werewolf country. It's too dangerous." He told her over the roof of the blue mustang.

"All the more reason for me to come with you." she argued and he took a deep breath and let it out in a huff. "I'm not going to just sit here and not help make sure my friend gets her stupid ass back here in one piece."

"Fine, just…don't do anything stupid." He told her and jerked his head for her to get in the car.

* * *

When they found Alaric and Elena halfway up the mountain, Damon, still pissed at Elena pushed her off the ledge she was standing on into the water below. "Damon, Katie, what…? How are you even here?" Elena asked, soaked from head to toe as she stood waist deep in the muddy water.

"Thanks for the tip, brother." Damon told Alaric over his shoulder.

"You sold me out." Elena asked Alaric with her hands held out to the sides over the water.

"You think I'd take you to a mountain range of werewolves on a full moon without backup?" Alaric asked getting a pissed look from Elena.

"Just get out of the water so we can go home." Katie told her with an aggravated tone.

"No." Elena answered making Katie sigh and pinch the bridge of her nose.

"Get out of the water, Elena." Damon told her with more force.

"No. If I get out of the water you're going to make me go home." She stated the obvious as Katie dropped her hand from her face and rolled her eyes.

"Yes, because I'm not an idiot like you." Damon told her as he propped his arm up on the tree beside him.

"Right now, you're both acting like idiots." Alaric spoke up, over their arguing.

"You gave up on him, Damon." Elena told him standing her ground in the water.

"I didn't give up on him, Elena." Damon told her as he walked a little close to the small ledge. "I faced reality. Now get out of the water."

"No!" Elena argued as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"What's your big plan Elena?" Damon asked as he hopped down to her level. "You gonna walk into a campsite full of werewolves," he started walking out into the water, "roast a marshmallow, and wait for Stefan to stop by?"

"My plan is to find him and help him." Elena argued. Seeing as how this was going to take a while Katie walked over to a tree and leaned back against it, content to watch them argue. "This is the closest that we've been to him since he left. I'm not going home."

"Klaus thinks you died when he broke the curse. That makes you safe." Damon told her with a glare. "This?" he asked with his hands held out to the sides. "This is not safe."

"I'm not leaving before we find him." Elena told him.

"It's a full moon tonight, Elena." Damon told her really getting aggravated.

"Then we'll find him before then." Elena told him and as a moment of silence passed Katie realized something. Damon was actually listening to Elena and considering letting her stay. Normally Damon didn't listen to anyone but himself, and on the rare occasion, Katie. "Damon, please." Another moment passed Katie turned her eyes up at Alaric to see if he was noticing the same thing Katie was, that Elena had more power over Damon than they thought. He looked at her then down at Damon and Elena then back at her.

"Ok." Damon caved. "Okay, but we are out of here before the moon is full and we're wolf bait."

"I promise." Elena nodded.

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Katie asked, jealous anger bubbling to the surface. "The plan was to bring her home not go on a hike in werewolf territory. I've lived in Irish werewolf territory as a human and I gotta say I'm not liking it any more as a vampire that could _die_ from a single nip."

"If you don't want to be here, go home." Elena snapped at her.

"Unfortunately I'm just as stubborn and stupid as you are, so no. I'm not going home unless you're coming too."

"Not happening." Elena told her stubbornly.

"Then let's stop wasting daylight." Alaric spoke up with a look between the two girls.

They had been walking in silence for an hour when Alaric, who was walking behind Damon and Elena spoke up again. "So you lived in Ireland?" Katie knew he was trying to break the tension and she decided to let him.

"In the 1800's, yeah." She nodded.

"Why didn't you just move out of werewolf territory?" he asked just to keep her talking.

"Because I was a struggling single mother with no where else to go." She answered. "They killed my sister one full moon. Bit my son another, and one would have ripped me to shreds on another. Elijah saved us both." She saw Damon look back at her at the mention of Elijah. "Before Elijah showed up I wasn't even aware werewolves were a thing. I just thought there was an over population of wolves."

"How you doin?" Damon asked Elena when he noticed she was getting winded.

"Fine." She told him aggravatedly.

"You know I can help you." he told her.

"No thanks." She replied as they climbed a small hill.

"Just one little whoosh." He told her as he moved his arms out in front of him like superman.

"Yeah, with my luck, you'd drop me." Elena said with a groan as she took a large step up.

Alaric looked at Katie who was still walking beside him. "You're not whooshing me."

Katie laughed with a shake of her head at the thought of how awkward it would be to have to grab him and whoosh him that far. She loved him as a teacher and friend of friends, but it would have to be an emergency for that to happen.

They had been walking for what felt like forever when Alaric said, "We've got about a mile left."

"And the sun isn't far from setting." Katie told them getting antsy.

"I can see that, Katie." Elena told her with an attitude. "The moon doesn't reach it's apex for a while. We have time."

Damon's walking slowed, sensing someone else around them so Katie opened her ears and heard someone's shambled footsteps and beating heart. She was about to say something when a guy in jeans and a red flannel shirt over a grey t-shirt stepped out of the woods. He had blood on his face, dripping from his eyes and down his throat and his t-shirt. When he saw them he looked up and said, "Vampire".

In a flash he grabbed Damon, spun him around and pinned him to a nearby tree. Damon was keeping him from biting him with his hand on his throat. In a flash Katie grabbed the werewolf guy around his waist and slammed him on the ground. She pinned him down with her body and placed her converse clad foot under his chin to keep him from biting her. "Someone wanna help me out here?" Katie asked, surprised that the werewolf seemed to be on the verge of overpowering her when most werewolves couldn't take a vampire out of wolf form.

Alaric grabbed a wolfsbane dart out of his backpack and stuck the guy in the neck with it, weakening him enough that Katie could stand up, but she kept her foot on the guys neck as Damon and Alaric started tying him up. "Let me guess. Hybrid." Alaric said getting a look from all three of them. She only moved her foot when Damon tapped her ankle then picked the guy up from the ground. After using everything they had the guy was tied to a tree, but still managing to fight. Nothing seemed to be holding him down for long. "Alright, that's the last of the vervain." Rick said as he tided vervain soaked ropes around the guy. "We don't have enough stuff to hold him. I don't think we're gonna make that ridge before the full moon."

"If we can get him to talk we don't have to." Elena was reaching her hand out to the hybrid guy when he took in a deep breath, lifted his head and screamed out as his neck started twitching, the sickening sound of breaking bones filled the air around him.

"Is he turning?" Damon asked with a frown as he looked up at the setting sun.

"It's impossible. It's still daylight." Elena said as she too turned her eyes up to the sky.

"Tell him that." Alaric popped off.

"There aren't supposed to be werewolves out here until the moon is full." Elena said freaking out as Damon placed his hands on the hybrid's shoulders keeping him pinned to the tree.

"Those ropes and us are nothing to a wolf, much less a hybrid with wolf and vampire strength." Katie told Elena and Alaric as the hybrid leaned forward trying to bite Damon.

"We've got to get out of here." Elena said and Katie breathed a small sigh of relief that Elena was starting to see the light on this whole adventure of hers. "Damon, we've gotta get out of these mountains, now!" she shoved Damon and he took his hands off of the hybrid as they all made a run for it.

Katie wished with everything in her that she could just whoosh away to safety and a dark part of her thought about it, but she couldn't leave Elena and Alaric behind. So she stuck with the group. The sun had completely set when Elena tripped over a tree root and they all stopped and turned to look at her to see a wolf staring her down where she sat on the ground.

Katie's eyes looked at the wolf, then Damon who knew what she was thinking just by looking at her eyes. Damon mouthed the word no at her. She was about to whistle at the wolf to get it's attention before she ran when Damon said, "Here doggie, doggie." and zipped away with the wolf on his trail.

"Son of a bitch, Damon." Katie cursed him as Elena stood up.

"Come on. Let's keep moving." Alaric waved his hand for them to follow him.

"We can't leave Damon." Elena argued.

"He can handle himself. Let's move." Alaric argued.

Elena looked at Katie. "Go after him."

"I can't Elena. So let's go before I throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carry you down kicking and screaming." Katie told her as she put her hand on Elena's back and gave her a small push to get moving.

"I'm the reason he's out here, Katie." Elena argued.

"I'm the reason he's out here." Alaric snapped at them. "I told them where we were and I'm telling you to keep moving!" Elena hesitated, but started walking down the mountain.

Katie was leaning against Alaric's car waiting for Damon, seriously considering going to find him when he came out of the woods and she whooshed over to him. "Are you okay, were you bit?" she asked getting an aggravated look from him.

"I'm fine, Katie Cat." He sighed as they started walking toward Alaric and Elena who were getting out of the car as they neared them.

"Damon, are you okay? Did you-" Elena asked as she rushed over to him.

"I'm fine, bite free. Get back in the car, please." Damon told her as he put his hand on her chest and pushed her back.

"Can you just give me a minute to appreciate that you're not dead?" she asked.

"I'll give you ten seconds, 9, 8..." he grabbed her by her shoulders and turned her around. "Hey Ric, did you happen to see where I parked my car?" he pushed her toward her car.

"Damon, stop being such a caveman." Elena complained as he opened her door and pushed her into the car then shut it behind her.

* * *

"What happened out there?" Katie asked as they headed into the boarding house, Katie walking behind Damon. "You haven't said a word since we got in the car." He turned and looked at her with wide pissed off eyes. "You're mad at me. Why am I not surprised?"

"Probably because you know I'm pissed at you for even thinking about letting that wolf chase you. Do you have some sort of death wish?" he asked as he walked closer and closer to her. "If you keep putting yourself in harms way you're going to end up dead and you know it."

"What I know," she started as she took a step back, "is that my best friend, my family, was in danger and I will die before I let my family die knowing there was something I could have done to prevent it! If you call that a death wish then fine. I have a death wish!" Damon just stared at her.

"No. I refuse to let you get yourself killed just because you think you will come back in god knows how many years." He told her with rage in his eyes.

Katie took a deep breath and held it as she placed her hands on her hips and looked down at the ornate rug that covered the floor. Those three words, I refuse to. They started ninety percent of the sentences that her grandfather had ever said to her and in that moment, in the tone of voice Damon was using with her, she got jerked back in time and heard her grandfather's voice in her head. Then once again heard her first father's voice telling her 'you will do this' or 'you will not do that'. "Damon," she let the breath out and looked up at him, "I have been told all my life, in both of my lives, what I can and can't, will and will not do. Please don't be another one of those people who _refuse_ to let me do something. What I do with my life, my choices, are mine to make."

Damon didn't say a word as he walked to the front door, opened it, walked out and slammed it behind him causing Katie to jump and the pictures on the wall to shake. With a heavy sigh she drug herself upstairs to her room and took a shower. When she was done she threw on some cheer shorts and a tank top then sat down at her desk and let her hair fall around her shoulders in lose wet ringlets. She grabbed a pen and opened her journal to a fresh page.

"_I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I love Damon, I do, but when he says things to me like he did tonight it makes me wonder if why I put up with it. When we first got together it was just for the fun of it. Then I saw how good of a person he could be and I fell for him. Even though I knew we wouldn't last…I fell. He's fun to be with, but here lately it feels more like we spend more time fighting to have a relationship than we do actually having one. When we're not fighting about Katherine or Elijah we're finding something else to argue about. I've never actually seen a functioning relationship, but I'm pretty damn sure this is not what one is supposed to be like."_She lifted the pen from the paper, debating on if she even wanted to write down what she was thinking and feeling. If she wrote it down, she'd have to accept it and it would become all too real. But she forced herself to put pen back to paper. _"I've been dreaming about Elijah. I know it's no longer the spell making me have the dreams. It's me. It's my subconscious pushing me to be with him. To follow my heart and stop pushing back everything I feel for him. I love Damon. He was been with me trough everything and we've been through so much, but it feels like we are slipping apart and I don't know what to do." _Getting aggravated she threw the pen on the desk and slammed the journal shut.

She thought she heard something she followed the sound to Damon's room where he was getting out of the shower. "What?" Damon asked as he wrapped the towel around him.

"Where'd you go?" she asked timidly.

"I needed some fresh air."

"You know I can tell when you're lying to me right?" she asked as she leaned on the door frame.

"I went to Elena's okay?" he told her then turned to his dresser and pulled the drawer open.

"Why didn't you just tell me that in the first place?"

"Because I know how jealous of her you can be." He told her in a choppy tone without making eye contact.

Katie bit her lips closed and nodded. "Okay. Goodnight I guess." She went to her room, flipped off the light switch, slid into bed and closed her eyes. The image of Damon on his death bed filled her mind as his words echoed through her head, _"Thank you for choosing me. You have no idea how much that means to me."_ Feeling the stabbing pain of her heart breaking she rolled over and pressed her face into her pillow then covered her head with the second one she never used and sandwiched her head between then as she let the tears flow.

On any other night, Damon would have come to her in the middle of the night, claiming that he couldn't sleep without her, but tonight…he didn't.

**A/N:** I want to thank everyone for their reviews and p.m.'s. I was surprised at the amount of people that voiced their opinions. Thank you to all of you. I was torn on what to do for a good while, but my husband pointed out that I'm not going to be able to please everyone. So since it's pretty obvious which way Katie is leaning and what's happening with Damon and Elena, to those of you who said they'd stop reading if Katie ended up with Elijah, I guess this or the next chapter is where I bid you farewell. It's been nice having you and I'm sorry if I disappointed you.


	28. Chapter 28

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 28**

When she woke up the next morning, Damon was already awake and gone. With a sigh she went back to her room and got dressed, had a blood bag then headed to the grill just to get out of the house. She was sitting at a table, drinking a cup of coffee that Matt had assured her was vervain free since the sheriff had started getting him to slip it in the coffee, when Tyler walked over to her. "Hey, have you heard from Caroline?" he asked looking worried.

"No. Not since Elena's birthday party. Why?" she asked with peaked curiosity.

"My mom knows about her and now I can't find her." he answered. "Do you know where she could've taken her?"

"No, there's only one person I can think of that would know." Katie answered.

"Who?" Tyler asked.

"Her mom." Katie answered.

"You think I should go to the sheriff?" Tyler asked with raised brows.

"Nope, I think _we_ should go to the sheriff." Katie answered.

* * *

Katie and Tyler stood outside the door of the holding cell that held Caroline, listing to Sheriff Forbes talk to her ex-husband. "That's our daughter in there. She looks up to you. She loves you."

"Then she'll trust me to do the right thing." Bill argued. "Let me do this Liz. Not because she's a monster. But because we love her."

"Tyler, Katie." The sheriff called and the two of them came inside to see her standing on a spiral staircase pointing a gun at Bill.

Katie, pissed at Bill for hurting Caroline, simply jumped down while Tyler walked down the stairs. "You're not goin' in there." Bill tried to step in Katie's way when she neared the door, but the Sheriff fired a warning shot near him.

"Go ahead." The Sheriff told them so Katie and Tyler went inside.

"Katie, Tyler?" Caroline asked weakly.

"We've got you Care." Katie told her as she and Tyler broke the restraints that were keeping Caroline in the chair.

"Yeah. We're gonna get you out of here." Tyler told her.

"My ring." Caroline said as she pointed to the floor next to Tyler. So he grabbed it and put it back on her finger then carefully picked her up. Her back was blistered from the sun and wasn't healing due to the lack of blood in her system.

They were on their way out when Bill spoke up. "Katie Finnegan, a vampire. Your parents would be so disappointed. After everything they did to protect you from all of this."

Katie stopped and turned to him with a glare. "What do you know about my parents?" she asked.

"I know they would die before they would let you turn or have anything to do with vampires." He told her.

"Bill." The Sheriff spoke up with a warning tone.

"No I want to hear this." Katie told her without looking at her. "Do you know how they died?"

"The first time or the second time?" he asked with a look that made her want to slap him.

"Katie we need to get Caroline home." Sheriff Forbes spoke up.

Katie sighed, turned from him and headed up the stairs, content to get her information from the sheriff later since it sounded like she knew whatever Bill wasn't saying.

She sat in the passenger seat of the Sheriff's car while Tyler sat in the back with Caroline. "Katie, about your parents." The Sheriff started, testing the water on the subject. Katie looked at her, clearly wanting to hear what she had to say. "They were on the founder's council. They called me and told me that they found a vampire in New Orleans willing to turn them. They said his name was Marcel. I begged them not to do it and come home, but they wouldn't listen. They turned and I didn't hear anything again until your mother's body was shipped here and cremated. I scattered her ashes over the empty grave. I still don't know if your father is dead or still a vampire." She told her then looked over at Katie's watery eyes. "If you ever want to know what happened to your parents I'd try to find Marcel. It's not much of a lead, but it's all I've got."

"My father's still alive." Katie told her and when the sheriff gave her a questioning look, Katie added, "Damon tracked him down for me before I turned. He said dad said he would never come home to me because it wasn't safe for a vampire to be in my life."

The sheriff laughed then looked at Katie apologetically. "I'm sorry, that's not funny. It's been a long night."

"No, I see the irony." Katie told her with a wave of her hand. "Thank's for the Marcel tip."

"You're welcome."

* * *

She was sitting in her room at the boarding house, writing in her journal when Damon stopped in her doorway, leaning on the frame. "How was your day?" he asked with a sigh.

"Fine until Tyler told me that his mom figured out that Caroline's a vampire. The sheriff brought us to a holding cell where Bill was torturing Caroline. He said that he was fixing her. We got her back, but I think she's hurt emotionally more than physically." She told him as she stood up and turned to him. "And Sheriff Forbes told me the name of the Vampire that turned my parents so that's an upside. How was yours?"

"Elena and I went to see Stefan." He said making Katie raise her brows at him, not surprised that he was with Elena today. "Let's just say Caroline isn't the only one of your friends who got emotionally hurt tonight." Katie just sighed and placed her hand on the desk and leaned her hip on it.

"So Stefan's really gone huh?" she asked looking at him tiredly.

"Yep and now Elena realizes it too" he told her still keeping his distance.

"I'm sorry." She told him, meaning it. She knew Damon missed Stefan and she did too, but there was nothing either of them could do at the moment to make it any better.

"I need a drink. Do you want one?"

Katie pick her head up and shook her had no. "Na, I'm good."

"You're still mad at me." he observed.

"I'm not mad at you. Unlike the people of my past, you try to tell me what to do because you care about me and you don't want to lose me. But there's a fine line between caring and controlling." He just stared at her. "So I'm not mad at you I just…need some time to clear my head I guess."

"Okay. Goodnight then." He told her with a nod then walked away.

* * *

~*Dreaming*~

Elijah and Hannah lay in bed in their room of the cabin, her head resting on his shoulder while his hand played with her hair, making her curls frizz even more than usual, but she didn't care. "Tell me about your sister." She asked just wanting to hear him talk.

"Rebekah is…spoiled." He continued to tell her about how she fall's in love too quickly and deeply. How stubborn, hot headed and snarky she could be as well as being a bit of a brat. "I don't know if she would like you." he finished.

"I don't know if I would like her either." Hannah said with a look up at him. "But I would very much like to meet her one day."

Elijah slid his hand over her cheek. "Where my siblings travel trouble is sure to follow."

"So, if I ever meet her, you will have to leave?" Hannah asked and he nodded. "I retract my statement. I never wish to meet her." Elijah smiled and pecked her on the lips.

~*End of Dream*~

Katie once again woke up alone. Instead of wallowing in the loneliness like she wanted to she pulled herself together, got dressed and started on her dish for the founder's potluck party. She figured since her parents were on the council she should participate in council events like Elena and Caroline.

Not having to work, she figured she would stop by Elena's and check up on her after the events of the previous night. When she let herself inside she heard Damon and Elena in the kitchen. "Yeah, I knew your old family. They made sucky chili."

When she walked into the kitchen she saw Elena hip dump Damon and giggle. Damon smirked down at her only for the smirk to fall when he saw Katie. She hid it well, but he saw the hurt in her eyes. "Katie, I didn't know you were dropping by." Elena said when she saw her.

"Yeah, I uh, made a dish for the founder's party." She said as she walked over and slid the plate covered with saran rap onto the counter.

"Why?" Elena asked since Katie had never participated and her parent's weren't founders of Mystic Falls.

"Because I learned last night that my parents were on the council." She answered getting interested looks from Damon and Elena. "Sheriff Forbes told me that a vampire named Marcel turned my parents."

Things became quiet and the tension in the air was becoming stifling when Elena said, "See Katie didn't make Chili." to Damon who was still standing next to her with a point at the dish.

"That's because everybody and their mother brings chili to potlucks." Katie replied as she sat down in the barstool.

"See, told you." Damon told her then looked at the puffs under the plastic wrap. "What did you make?"

"Pepperoni tomato basil puffs." She answered.

Not long after, Damon got a call and went outside to take it. He came back inside. "I gotta go, but I'll see you at the party." He told Katie then looked at Elena. He pecked Katie on the forehead and walked away.

"Everything okay with you two?" Elena asked with a frown.

"Yeah, peachy." She answered with a fake smile that Elena believed. It'd been a long time since she had to put on a show to cover up her problems, but apparently she still had it.

Katie played on her cell phone, not having it in her to make small talk when she had walk in on her flirting with her boyfriend, until Bonnie and Caroline showed up. "The problem with my dad's normal side of the family is normal made for a really boring summer." Bonnie said from where she sat beside her in the barstool while Caroline and Elena finished up the chili.

"After the last few days, I would kill for a normal family." Caroline said then looked at Katie. "Hey are you okay? You're being really quiet."

"Yeah, I'm fine." Katie lied and Caroline gave her a look that said she didn't believe her. "Hey, Elena, my phone's going dead can I steal you charger for a little while?"

"Yeah, you know where it's at." Elena told her with a point up to her room. So Katie headed to Elena's room.

While she plugged her phone in she listened to the girls downstairs. "So when did you learn how to cook?" she heard Caroline ask Elena.

"Damon helped a little." Elena answered.

"Damon's helping you cook now?" Bonnie asked. "Aren't he and Katie still together?"

"Both of you stop judging. He's just trying to be a good-Ow!" Katie heard Elena hiss in pain.

"Did I splash you?" Caroline asked.

"No, no, my necklace." Elena answered. "It burned me."

"Maybe it's a sign you shouldn't be wearing it." Caroline replied being her judgy self.

"Caroline." Bonnie warned.

"What, I'm just saying. You know if you're going to be cooking without Stefan." She heard Caroline say. "How long does it take to plug up a cell phone?" she could hear Carline's distinct footsteps headed her way and she sat down on Elena's bed with a sigh. "Hey." Caroline greeted and Katie looked up at her. "I'm guessing you heard all of that?"

"That Elena's necklace burned her? Yeah." Katie answered, dropping her eyes to her hands where she picked at her cuticles.

"That was weird, but you know that's not what I was talking about." She replied as she sat down on the bed next to her.

"Yeah." Katie said then started chewing on the inside of her lip.

"I knew there was something off with you when we came in." she told her with a slow blink at her. "I thought you and Damon were doing good."

"I don't even know what good mean's these days. I've slept in my own bed the past two nights. Then I come over here and walk in on Elena flirting with him." Katie told her.

"Maybe it's not what you think." Caroline tried to defend them, but Katie stood up and unplugged her phone.

"Or maybe it's exactly what I think and I can't even be that mad at him because I've been dreaming about Elijah all summer. It's not even him that's pissing me off. It's Elena." Katie answered and walked out of the room before Caroline could say anything else.

"Elena's necklace shocked me." Bonnie told them when they got downstairs.

"That's weird." Katie said as she walked over to the counter and grabbed her plate of puffs. "I'm heading to the party early so Carol can have time to make one of the little name things for my dish since it wasn't expected of me." She didn't give them time to say anything before she was already out the door.

"What is up with her?" Bonnie asked after the front door was closed.

"She didn't want to tell you guys that she's actually going to the boarding house. She forgot to drink her blood bag this morning." Caroline covered for her attitude and Katie pulled out her dying phone and texted Caroline a thank you.

* * *

Katie was at the party fixing a plate of food, just to look busy while avoiding the friends that she was eavesdropping on where they sat away from the rest of the group while Bonnie worked an identification spell on Elena's necklace. When she peeked up at them she saw Caroline look at her then at Elena. "So you're not, like, switching Salvatore's, are you?" she asked Elena making Katie's heart stop.

"What?" Elena asked since the question seemed to come out of nowhere.

"Caroline." Bonnie scolded.

"Stay focused." Caroline barked then turned back to Elena. "As your friend who worries about her friends daily, what is the deal with you and Damon?"

"There is no deal. He's been just as focused on finding Stefan as I have." Elena defended.

"Yeah, but you are aware that he and Katie are still together right?" Caroline asked.

"Of course I know they're still together." Elena asked with an awkward laugh.

"Then why have you been spending so much time with him? You can't tell me that hanging out with him and cooking chili has anything to do with finding Stefan." Caroline pried knowing Katie was listening.

"Why are we even talking about this?" Elena asked getting aggravated with Caroline.

Caroline didn't get a chance to answer because Bonnie started talking about how the necklace has its own magic so Katie tuned them out. She was pouring herself a glass of sweet tea when she heard Alaric and Damon talking. "I think you need to take a beat with Elena." Alaric told him and Katie couldn't make herself look up at them. "Maybe try focusing on your own girlfriend instead of your brothers."

"Excuse me?" Damon asked.

"Whatever it is you have going on with Elena, I think it's a bad idea." Alaric warned him.

"I don't really think it's your problem, Ric." Damon told her with an attitude.

"It is my problem. I'm supposed to look after Elena and Katie doesn't have parents to keep and eye on her. This is me looking out for them." Alaric told him.

Katie walked over to an empty table and sat down, glancing up at Alaric and Damon as she did. "What do you think I'm doing?" Damon asked practically getting in his face.

"What I think…is you need to take a beat." Alaric repeated before the sheriff interrupted to let Damon know the council meeting was about to start.

Katie finished off her plate of food then threw it and cup in the trash and left the party.

* * *

Katie sat at her desk in the boarding house, her journal open on the journal entry she had just finished. She took the necklace Damon gave her that she had been using as the page marker out of the book and put it on the empty desk. She tucked the journal into her shoulder bag then grabbed two boxes that were sitting on the bed and started downstairs. She had just gotten out of the door when her phone started ringing. She didn't want to answer it when she saw Elena's name on the screen, but she forced herself to answer in case it was an emergency. "What?"

"I just wanted to let you know that Damon tried to kill Bill Forbes and he killed Alaric, but thankfully he's wearing his ring." She told her sounding stressed and worried.

"Thanks for letting me know." Katie's words were flat.

"So he probably going to be pissed when he gets home." Elena warned her.

"Well he may or may not get even more pissed when he gets here." Katie told her with the same boarderline uncaring tone as before.

"Why?" Elena drawled even more worried.

"Because I'm packing my things as we speak." Katie answered. "I'm moving back to my house, permanently."

"What? Why?" Elena asked sounding surprised even though she shouldn't be.

"Don't play stupid, Elena." Katie replied then hung up no longer willing to have this conversation with her.

She was putting the last two boxes in her trunk when she saw Damon walked to the house, spinning his car keys around his finger as he did. When he saw her out of the corner of his eyes he stopped. "What are you doin'?" he asked not looking at her, sounding tired and aggravated.

"Moving back home." She answered flatly as she grabbed the last box off the ground and sat it in the back of the car.

"I thought you said this was home." He said as he walked over, tucking his keys into his pants pocket.

"It was, but if I'm being honest it hasn't felt like home all summer." She answered as she closed the trunk, leaving her hand on it.

"What are you talking about?" he asked tiredly.

"I'm talking about us, Damon." She told him as he rested his hand next to hers on the back of the car. "You can't tell me you don't feel what is happening to us."

"I love you, Katie." He told her putting his hand on her cheek making her eyes slip closed and a tear slipped down her cheek.

"And I love you, Damon." She told him as she opened her eyes and took his hand from her face, holding it in both of hers. "A part of me always will. I am so grateful that I had you there with me though all of the bullshit in my life and I thank you for everything you've done for me." Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she kept her voice strong even as her hands shook and she tapped the toe of her converse into the cement. "I want you to know that I will always be here for you if you need me, but let's face it…you don't need me anymore." She told him with a shrug. "I see the way you and Elena look at each other and I'm not going to stand in the way of your happiness."

"Katie…" he sighed with tears in his wide blue eyes.

"Tell me I'm wrong and I'll stay, but please…don't lie to me." She told him as she held onto his hand a little tighter between hers.

"I…" he paused as a tear slipped down his cheek. "You're not wrong. But I told you I wouldn't give up on you."

"And I told you I would always choose you." She felt her heart breaking as she placed her hand on his cheek, wiping his tear with her thumb. "We meant what we said when we said it, but...We just…changed over the summer…we grew in different directions and that's okay." She said with a shrug then took her hand off his face and wiped at her own.

"Do you think we can still be friends?" Damon asked and Katie smiled sadly.

"Eventually." she nodded. "But right now I need space."

Damon breathed in a quick breath as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into him. "Can I still call you Katie Cat?" he said into her neck.

She laughed through her tears. "Yeah." she then leaned back and looked into his eyes as she cupped his cheek in her hand. They kissed each other one last time before they let go. He held her hand and walked her to her car door, opened it for her then waited for her to get in and shut the door as she cranked the car. He couldn't watch her drive away so he whooshed into the house and made himself a drink.

* * *

Katie spent the next three days unpacking her things from the boarding house, cleaning and rearranging practically the whole house. To say she didn't know what to do with herself without Damon would be an understatement. She felt as if she was just biding time before school started and there was something to give her life structure. She thought seriously about getting her job at the grill back, but she would just end up quitting again so she threw out the idea out along with half of her clothes and shoes. However she couldn't make herself throw out the red dress and heels that Damon had bought her for the Miss Mystic pageant or the white, black and blue dress she wore the night he gave her the vervain necklace.

She also found that in her solitude, no longer attached to Damon, random memories of her and Elijah would make their way to the front of her brain throughout the day. The more this happened the more she realized that even after Jonas Martin tore down the barrier of her memories, she herself had unknowingly been suppressing them because she had been with Damon. The more memories she recovered the more she wanted Elijah back and she itched to be with him once again.

* * *

She was shopping in town when she passed the hair salon, backtracked then went inside. When she came back out her auburn hair that once hung to the center of her back was now layered and just long enough to brush against her shoulders. Its dark red wavy strands were now mostly blonde with low lights of her original color. She had been feeling like a different person, now she felt like it reflected on the outside.

As she pulled into her driveway Caroline and Bonnie pulled in behind her. "Hey, I've been trying to call you all day, where have you been?" Caroline asked as Katie started getting shopping bags out of the back seat of her car. "And what's with your hair?"

"Retail therapy." Katie answered holding up the shopping bags then looked up at her side bangs that were swept to the left side of her face. "Does it look bad?" she asked knowing Caroline would give her an honest opinion.

"No it's just really different for you." Caroline answered as they all headed inside. She watched Katie set the bags on the couch that had been moved from where it had been against the front wall of the living room to sit in the middle of the room across from the television that sat on the fireplace mantle. "Are you sure you're okay?" Caroline asked for the thousandth time since she found out from Elena that she broke up with Damon.

"Yes, Caroline. For the one thousandth time I am fine." Katie told her as she looked at Bonnie who was smiling at her knowing Caroline was getting on her nerves.

"Elena said you're not answering her calls." Bonnie added agreeing with Caroline that something wasn't quite right with her.

"That is because I'm not completely happy with her right now and until I figure it out if I am being a typical vampire and over reacting or if I'm just genuinely displeased with her, I don't really want to talk about it." Katie answered as she pulled a sundress from Aeropostale out of a paper shopping back. "So what's up?" she asked getting back to why they were here as she tossed the dress on the back of the couch.

"It's senior prank night." Caroline told her as if she should know these things.

"Ugh." Was the only response it got out of Katie.

"Come on. I'm not letting you skip this." Caroline whined.

"No, Caroline." Katie responded as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Katie, you are the one that thought of covering the hallway floors in bubble wrap. We've been waiting for this day since freshman year!" Caroline ranted. "We're about to be seniors. These are the memories that will stay with us forever and if we don't create these memories now, then what's the point of it all?"

"If I do this will you stop yelling at me?" Katie asked.

"Yes." Caroline answered with a please smile.

"Fine." She caved then looked at Bonnie. "Did you get the same speech?"

Bonnie gave her a tight lipped smile and a nod. "Yep."

"Let me have some lunch and I'll be ready." Katie told them as she went to the kitchen and grabbed a blood bag.

* * *

Since it was her idea Caroline put her in charge of covering two entire hallways with bubble wrap along with Dana, her boyfriend Chad and a few other people. She wasn't thrilled about working with Dana and Chad, mainly because Dana was annoying by herself but put her with Chad and they turned into one of those annoyingly sweet, lovey dovey, over the top couples that Katie wanted to strangle even when she did have a boyfriend of her own. However she stuck with the group she was given because her only other option was to be around Elena.

After taking three hours to cover the hallways with bubble wrap Katie abandoned the group and went outside where no one was and hatched another idea. With a look around to make sure no one was watching she moved all the trashcans on top of the sidewalk awnings. This is what she was doing when she saw a moving truck parked behind the school. Stefan and a blonde vampire girl were behind it, the blonde stabbed Stefan with a crowbar.

Curious Katie jumped off the roof as quietly as she could and headed inside assuming that Klaus was somewhere in there. It took a while, but she eventually found him, Elena, Chad and Dana in gym where the seniors had been working on covering the floor with cups filled with water. "Katie, run!" Elena yelled at her.

Katie took in Dana standing on one foot while Chad stared at her with wide eyes. Her eyes found Klaus as she said, "Mmm, no…I don't think I will." Katie let the gym door shut behind her and walked over to stand between them and Dana and Chad.

"You really should listen to her, Love." Klaus warned.

"Why, because you'll kill me if I don't?" Katie asked with a roll of her eyes.

"Why don't you do me a favor and go find your witch friend, what's her name…Bonnie?" he asked and she could tell that he was trying to compel her. She knew the smart thing to do would be to let him think it had worked and go get help, but at the moment she didn't feel like being smart.

"Because I don't take orders from you." she answered with a smart ass look and shake of her head.

"You're on vervain." Klaus said with wide eyes.

Katie gasped exaggeratedly. "How'd you guess?" she asked with an attitude. "I'm guessing you're here to kill her?" she asked getting a disbelieving look from Elena.

Klaus copied her gasp. "How'd you guess?"

Katie smirked at him with a quiet laugh.

"What is the matter with you?" Elena asked Katie with a disgusted look.

"Nothing." Katie answered then looked back at Klaus who had opened his mouth to say something, but the gym door opened behind him and he turned to see Bonnie and Matt walk in.

"Bonnie get out of here!" Elena yelled.

Klaus whooshed around stopping Bonnie from leaving. "Ah, you're here. Now we can get started." He told her then looked past her to Dana and Chad. "Uh, Dana, you can relax. You and Chad sit tight." Dana and Chad sat down where they were standing then Klaus looked back at Bonnie. "I assume you're the reason Elena's still walking around alive?"

"That's right. If you want to blame someone, blame me." Bonnie answered,

"Oh, there's no need for blame, love. It's just that your witchy interference seems to have caused some undesirable side effects and since you caused the problem, I'm going to have you find the fix."

The gym door opened again and Tyler and the blonde that stabbed Stefan outside earlier came in. "Let go of me." Tyler yelled at the blonde that was holding his hands behind his back and told him to hush up.

"I'd like you all to meet my sister, Rebekah." Klaus held his hand out at her as he introduced her. "Word of warning, she can be quite mean."

"Don't be an ass." Rebekah told him and Katie noticed she too had the same English accent as Elijah and Klaus.

"Leave him alone!" Elena told Klaus as he grabbed Tyler by the back of his neck and headed to the center of the gym, but she got ignored.

"I'm gonna make this very simple." Klaus started then turned to face the group of teenagers that was his audience. "Every time I turn a werewolf into a vampire hybrid, they die during the transition. It's quite horrible, actually." He bit his wrist and pressed it to Tyler's mouth. "I need you to find a way to save my hybrids, Bonnie." He told her as he forced Tyler to drink his blood. "And for Tyler's sake…"

When Katie saw Klaus grab Tyler's head she sped over and tried to get shove him off of Tyler, but Klaus easily shoved Katie to the floor with his shoulder and broke Tyler's neck anyways. "Tyler…" Katie sighed not bothering to get up off the floor.

"You better hurry." Klaus finished what he was saying to Bonnie then looked down at Katie. "And you, Love, will not try something like that again or I will have no problem removing you from by brother's life again."

Katie glared up at him as she sat stood up. Matt kneeled down next to Tyler as Klaus walked off. "He killed him."

"He's not dead." Katie sighed as she kneeled down across from him. "Klaus's blood will turn him into a vampire werewolf hybrid." Katie said while Elena paced back and forth pointlessly.

"And if Bonnie's successful, he'll live though his transition." Klaus told them as he walked back over to them. "Go on then. Go and fetch your grimoires and enchantments and what-not." He told Bonnie as he strutted over and grabbed Elena's arm. "I'll hold on to Elena for safe keeping."

Elena gave Bonnie and nod and her and Matt ran out of the gym. Rebekah walked up behind Elena. "So this is the latest doppelganger." Elena jumped and looked over her shoulder as Rebekah moved around Elena sizing her up. "The original one was much prettier."

Katie bit her lips closed and smiled. Elijah had been right. She was snarky. "Rebekah, I don't think you've been formally introduced." Klaus said as he held his hand out at Katie. "Meet Katie Finnegan a.k.a. Hannah Easton-Finnegan."

"Elijah's Hannah?" Rebekah asked and Klaus smiled. "Your not nearly as wildly beautiful as Elijah described."

Katie laughed. "I was going to say you were prettier than Elijah described, but…" Katie looked at Klaus, "I don't like to lie."

"Why you little-" Rebekah started at Katie but Klaus stopped her.

"Enough Rebekah. Take the wolf boy elsewhere would you?" he told his sister who rolled her eyes but grabbed Tyler's hand and started dragging him out of the room.

"Ignore her…petty little thing." Klaus told them as he walked around Elena and over to the bleachers where he sat down to wait from news from Bonnie. Katie watched Elena walk over to Chad and Dana, who Katie had honestly forgotten were still in the gym, and start assuring them they would be okay. Katie rolled her eyes and walked over to the bleachers on the opposite side of the room from Klaus and sat down in the middle of them.

She was playing around on her phone, listening to "Crawling" by Linkin Park when Klaus whooshed over and sat down next to her. She ignored him. "You have seen me kill a werewolf, a vampire, your best friend and your long lost lover yet…You do not run from me and you have the gall to stand up to me. Why?"

She looked at him where he lounged back on the bleacher like her. "You're leaving out the part where for several months straight I saw you rip my head from my body every time I closed my eyes." Katie told him with a snarky smile then decided to answer his question. "Call it a lack of give a damn." she said as she moved her eyes out over the rest of the gym. "Or stupidity. I really don't know anymore." she answered with a shake of her head and a shrug.

He narrowed his eyes at her and cocked his head to the side. "I don't know what it is, but there is something about you I like."

"Yeah, your brother likes me too." She popped off as she looked at him and he smirked at her. "So if you would kindly pull the dagger from his chest and send him my way it would be very much appreciated." She told him with a sarcastically nice tone and finished with a smile.

His smirk grew into a smile. "What about Damon? I thought you were in love with him."

"Things change…people change." Katie answered honestly.

"I think it would be best if he remained with the rest of our family." He told her as he looked back at the three humans in the room.

"Damn it." Katie said as she snapped her fingers and moved her arm in front of her in an oh-shucks manner. "I had to at least ask." She sighed and sat up, put her elbow on her knee and placed her chin in her hand. Klaus laughed at her attitude. After a few seconds of silence passed between them Katie twisted her head in her hand to look at him. "There wouldn't be anything I could do to sway you would there?" a devilish grin took over his face. "If you're thinking naughty thoughts stop it. That's not what I meant."

"I know, love. I was just joshing you." he laughed as the gym door opened and she expected it to be Bonnie and Matt, but Stefan walked in and over to them.

"Come to save your damsel, mate?" Klaus asked as he sat up and propped his chin up on his folded hands.

"I came to ask for your forgiveness." Stefan answered. "And pledge my loyalty."

"Well, you broke that pledge once already." Klaus told him.

"Elena means nothing to me anymore." Stefan told him and Katie could tell he was trying way to hard to sell it. "And whatever you ask of me, I will do." Stefan finished.

"Fair enough." Klaus said as he stood up and headed over to the couple in the room. "Let's drink on it. Kill them." He pointed at Dana and Chad who scrambled up. Stefan looked at Katie, who just looked at him emotionlessly, then looked at Klaus. "What are you waiting for? Kill them."

"No, Stefan don't. He's not going to hurt me. He already said-" Elena's words were cut off when Klaus backhanded her across the face.

Stefan charged at Klaus, but only ended up with Klaus's hand on his throat. "She mean's nothing to you?" Klaus asked as Katie watched from the sidelines. "Your lies just keep piling up."

"Let her go. I'll do whatever you want. You have my word." Stefan rasped.

"Your word doesn't mean much. I lived by your word all summer, during which time I never had to resort to this." Klaus looked him in the eyes. "Stop fighting."

"Don't do this. Don't do this." Stefan begged and Katie watched as Elena looked at him with wide tear pooled eyes.

"I don't want to. All I wanted was your allegiance. Now I'm gonna have to take it." Klaus told him and Stefan begged him not to compel him, but Klaus looked him in the eyes and said, "You will do exactly as I say when I say it. You will not run, you will not hide, you will simply…just…obey." Klaus took his hand from Stefan's neck and jerked his head to Chad and Dana. "Now kill them, Ripper."

They all watched as Stefan whooshed over to Dana and bit her neck. The smell of the fresh blood drew Katie from the bleachers and over to stand next to Klaus. She didn't even realize she had moved or that blood had rushed to her eyes until Klaus bumped her shoulder with his. "Would you like me to tell him to share?"

Katie looked at Elena only to get a disapproving look from her and for a second Katie wanted to tell Klaus yes. Instead she took a deep breath and let it out through her nose, pushing back the need to feed. "I'll pass." Katie answered with a look at Klaus who smirked at her. She looked at Elena who was still giving her a judgey look. "Don't look at me like that. You have no idea what it's like to eat tv dinners day in and day out when you could have surf and turf hot off the grill." Katie told her with a glare.

"You say that like you drink animal blood." Elena bit back.

"Animal blood is a tv dinner that's been microwaved in an old boot that someone fished out of a redneck's pond." Kate answered. "I'd bite him before I drank that crap." Katie jerked her head at Klaus.

"You keep up that fiery attitude of yours and I might just let you." Klaus told her with a smirk down at her.

"Keep dreaming, Big Bad Wolf." Katie popped off then looked back at Stefan. "I do miss the fresh stuff though."

"What is wrong with you? He's killing our class mates and you're thinking about joining him?" Elena asked with a disgusted look.

"Um, hello, vampire." Katie answered holding her hands above her head as she pointed to herself.

"Caroline's a vampire and I can assure you she would not be acting like you if she were here." Elena told her as she moved around Klaus who was standing between them watching Stefan continue to kill people. "There is something else wrong with you."

"If you can't figure out what's wrong with me then you are way more self centered than I ever thought. I gave Damon a pass because my attachment to Elijah practically drove him away but you…? There's no excuse for you." Katie told her with a glare. She had been trying to hold it back and not hold Elena accountable for flirting with Damon when she is still technically with Stefan and Katie was with Damon. "And you know what? I'm pretty sure that magical little humanity switch that us vampires always talk about is stuck between off and on right now because at the moment I hate you." Elena stared at her with a gaping mouth.

Klaus looked down at Katie with a smirk. "Easy, love, let's not say things we don't mean." Klaus placed his hand on her shoulder and Elena was surprised when Katie didn't shrug him off. "Why don't you go take a breather, maybe check on your witch friend?"

"Gladly." She answered and headed for the exit.

"And Katie?" he called and she stopped and looked back at him. She saw Stefan threw Chad to the floor, finished with his meal. "Do not run away. I'd very much like to have another chat with you before the night is over."

"Ten-Four, rubber ducky." She told him with a two fingered salute as she walked backwards to the door, pushed it open with her hips and walked out.

She pulled out her phone as she breathed in the cool air of the night and dialed Bonnie. As the phone rang Rebekah passed her like a woman on a mission and went into the gym. Bonnie didn't pick up making Katie worry so she called her again. "Meet me at the pool!" Bonnie huffed into the phone then hung up.

Katie whooshed to the pool to find Bonnie pulling Matt out of the water so Katie grabbed him and finished turning him onto his back. "Wanna explain what's going on?" Katie asked as Bonnie started CPR.

"Later." Bonnie huffed as she kept up the compressions. "Come on Matt!" she yelled right as he coughed up water and turned onto his side.

Matt looked between Bonnie and Katie then flopped back down on the tiled floor. Katie zipped into the locker room and grabbed a towel then zipped back over to them. "Now does someone want to explain what's going on?" Katie asked with a look between the two of them as she held her hand out to Matt who took it and let her pull him up.

"My grimoires don't go back far enough to be able to help save Tyler." Katie handed Matt the towel. "We needed Jeremy to talk to Anna and Vicki and see if they could talk to someone on the other side who might know something. But we can't find Jeremy so this idiot decided to kill himself so that he could talk to his sister." They left the pool and started walking though the halls on their way to the gym.

"But it worked." Matt said as he walked around to stand in front of the two girls. "I saw her. I saw Vicki. She said she had a message for you." he told Bonnie. "From the witch that put the hybrid curse on Klaus. She said that Elena shouldn't have survived Klaus' ritual. The hybrids can't transition because Elena's still alive."

While they continued to talk Katie started thinking, remembering things that Elijah had told her back when they were together. Things about the witch that put the curse on Klaus, the first witch, their mother, Ester. Ester would have done anything and everything in her power, which was a lot, to keep Klaus from becoming a hybrid and siring more hybrids. It was a good possibility that she wanted Elena dead for a reason and that reason would be to keep hybrids from being created. When she heard Klaus' voice she looked up from the floor she had been staring at in thought to see him giving her a curious look. "Why does it look like a light bulb just went off over your head?"

"Because I think I'm at least half way to figuring out the answer to your problem." She answered honestly. "And killing Elena isn't it."

Klaus looked at Bonnie. "Your services are no longer needed. Good night." Bonnie and Matt rushed off, happy to have the green light to get the hell out of dodge. "Why don't you go check on Tyler and Caroline while I go make sure Stefan doesn't kill my much needed doppelganger?"

"Since you asked so nicely…sure. Why the hell not?" she sighed and headed to where she could hear Tyler and Caroline talking in the Chemistry lab.

When she walked into the lab she saw Tyler leaning over one of the black counters. Caroline was next to him stroking his back caringly and Rebekah sat on the counter behind them playing around on a cell phone. "How is he?" Katie asked as she walked over to stand across from Caroline and Tyler.

"Not good. Any news?" Caroline asked while Rebekah completely ignored her.

"None that I know for sure." Katie answered not wanting to get their hopes up. "I'm pretty sure Klaus sent me here to keep me away from Elena."

"Why?" Caroline asked.

"We kinda…got into it and I told her I hated her…all while Stefan was killing Dana and Chad." Katie admitted.

"Katie." Caroline sighed with a judgmental look.

"She just has this way of pissing me off with a single look." Katie replied the ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back out of her face.

"Well, the verdict's in. The original witch says the doppelganger should be dead." Klaus said as he strolled into the room and over to Katie giving her a nudge out of the way so he could stand across from Tyler so she scooted around to the end of the counter.

"Does that mean we can kill her?" Rebekah asked eagerly.

"No, I believe Katie and I agree that it means the opposite." Klaus said with a look at Katie then Rebekah.

"What?" Caroline asked just as Rebekah grabbed her to keep her away from Tyler.

"Call it a hunch." He pulled a tube of Elena's blood out and held it in front o Tyler's face. "Elena's blood, drink it."

"No, Tyler don't." Caroline said struggling to get out of Rebekah's grasp.

"If he doesn't feed, he'll die anyway, love." Klaus told her. "Consider this an experiment." Katie watched as Tyler drank the blood then fell to the floor in pain. After a few seconds he looked up at Klaus, his iris's golden while the whites of his eyes were blood red and veins popped under his eyes. "Well, that's a good sign." Klaus said as he took in Tyler's vampire fangs then looked up at Rebekah with a smile. He stood up and turned to Katie. "Now, let's have that chat." He jerked his head to the door and placed his hand on her upped back ushering her through the door. "You said you were close to solving my problem and you knew Elena didn't need to die. How?"

Katie looked down at the floor as they walked through the hallway. "Elijah." She answered.

"I'm afraid I'm gong to need more information than that." He told her with a look at her across his shoulder.

"I liked to hear him talk so I'd ask him to tell me about your family. This was every night, so I kind of know a lot about your history with your mother. I knew that she'd do everything she could to keep you from siring more hybrids. So if she said to kill Elena, that's probably the last thing you'd want to do." She told him as they came to an exit and walked out to where the moving van was parked. "That's as far as I got. I had no clue her blood was the solution." As they walked around the truck to the open back Katie's eyes quickly found the coffins inside of it. "Is that…?" she asked taking in the dark wood coffins, one of which wasn't covered in a thick layer of dust like the others.

"My family? Yes." He answered and Katie looked at him then back to the dust free coffin. "Make one to toward Elijah and I will rip your head off again." He warned.

"I wasn't going to." She said as she turned her watery eyes back to Klaus'. "I just really hate knowing that he is alone in the dark with a dagger in his chest. And I hate you for doing this to him."

Klaus tilted his head to the side and look at her down his nose as if he were thinking about something. "Can I see your cell phone please?" he asked and Katie pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Ugh, you've got to change that background, Love." He commented and she rolled her eyes. She wasn't quite ready to change the background of her and Damon kissing yet.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she watched him tap around on her screen then pull his phone out of his pocket.

"I just got your number and gave you mine. Should I think of a way for you to sway me, I will call you." he told her with a smile as he held her phone back out to her.

"So why did you give me your number?" she asked suspiciously as she took her phone from him.

"If you ever have a problem I can help with, call me, but you only get one favor. So use it wisely." He told her as he tucked his phone into his pocket then turned from her and pulled the back of the truck closed.

"Does asking you a question count as a favor?" She asked as he turned back around. He shook his head no. "For curiosity's sake, what happened to Stefan and Elena? Stefan's never been anything but a good friend to me."

"I compelled him to flip his switch. He took Elena to the hospital for a little blood donation." He answered.

Katie bit her lips closed and nodded. "God I hate you."

"If you hate me so much why are you still standing here?" He told her with a look the suggested she actually liked him.

"Because I've learned the hard way how to tolerate the people I hate until I get what I want from them." She answered then turned on her heel and walked away.


	29. Chapter 29

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 29**

Katie's Alarm went off at 5:45 waking her up for school and she groggily grabbed her phone and turned it off before she let it fall to the floor. She threw the black and white floral patterned comforter off and put her feet on the floor. "First day of my last year in this miserable place…Let's get this over with." She told her self as a crappy pep talk as she stood up and headed downstairs to put a pot of coffee on, but she found Damon pouring a cup and she stopped walking with a yawn. "What are you doing here?"

"Stefan's home and the house is full of women, live and dead. He's also blaring music so loud I want to scratch my eardrums out." He told her as he handed her the cup in his hand and she took it. "I needed to get away. Plus, I figured you could use those." He motioned to two blood bags on the kitchen table. "I like the new hair by the way."

"Thanks." She told him as they both sat down at the table. "Not to sound like a bitch, but why aren't you seeing Elena off to school?"

"Elena has Alaric and Jeremy. I didn't want you to be alone on the morning of your last first day of school." He told her honestly and she gave him a small smile. "Also Elena told me you said you hate her. Wanna talk about that?"

Her smile fell as she rolled her eyes and downed her coffee then set the empty cup on the table. "Nope and I need to shower and get dressed." She whooshed upstairs to her bathroom. She had just finished rinsing the shampoo out of her hair when she opened her eyes to see the plexiglas distorted image of Damon leaning on the birdbath sink with his arms crossed. "Seriously? We are not together anymore. Get out." She threw her wet shower puff at him over the door.

He caught it and tossed it in the sink behind him. "Not until you talk to me." He told her not giving up.

She took a deep breath and let it out as she bit her lips closed and turned off the water. He held a fluffy white towel out to her as she stepped out of the shower. "She was flirting with you when we were still together, Damon, not to mention she's still pining for Stefan." She told him as she wrapped the towel around herself. "She knew things with us were rocky and she took advantage of it. She all but stabbed me in the back by not having the common decency to wait until we were broken up before she started hitting on you."

"I didn't stop her from flirting, but you're not mad at me." He countered as she walked into her bedroom and he followed her.

"I'm not mad at you because I can understand you. We fell out of love so you sought it elsewhere." She grabbed a pair of distressed, dark wash jean shorts out of her closet and tossed them onto the bed along with a white t-shirt and her leather jacket. "Turn around please." She told him and he opened his mouth to protest, but she interrupted him. "Boundaries, Damon." He rolled his eyes but turned around. "But her… I don't understand how she could do this to me and Stefan." she said as she started getting dressed.

"It's not like she can help it. Some girls just can't resist my good looks, my style and my charm…"

"And there's the cocky Damon I remember." She said as she pulled her shirt over her head and stuck her arms through the sleeves. "I feel like he got a little lost while we were together." She added as she pulled on her shorts, buttoned and zipped them. "I didn't miss it." she walked past him to her closet and grabbed the one pair of shoes that didn't get thrown away when she did her wardrobe overhaul, her broken in pair of black and white converse.

"She also said you were a little too buddy, buddy with Klaus." He said as she headed into the bathroom and started putting on eye shadow, black cat eye eyeliner, mascara and a nude tented lip gloss. "The guy ripped your head from your body."

"I wasn't buddy, buddy with him, I just didn't tell him to go screw himself like I wanted to." She answered as grabbed her new black messenger bag with gold heart buckles, her jacket and shoes then headed downstairs where she put her bag down and sat down on the couch while Damon moved to stand across from her.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that he has Elijah would it?" he asked and she ignored him while she put her shoes on. "Talk to me Katie Cat."

"I'm not going to talk to you about Elijah." She stood up and grabbed her jacket and bag off the floor and threw the strap over her shoulder.

"You clearly need to talk to someone about what's going on with you." he followed her to the kitchen where she grabbed one of the blood bags and stuck it in the icebox then popped the stopper out of the tube of the other.

"Then I'll hire a shrink." She popped off at him then started drinking the blood as Damon stared at her. "Look, do I miss him? Yes. Do I want that dagger taken out of him? Yes. Will I go dark side in order to get what I want? No…maybe. I don't know…All I know is that it is driving me insane knowing that he is lying in a dark box while I'm just…carrying on with life like nothing is wrong." she finished off the blood bag then threw it in the trash. "So just…Stop asking me about him, okay?"

"Fine." He told her as he held his hand up like he was giving up then followed her to the front door.

He stopped in the doorway while she walked out on the porch then turned back to look at him. "You're welcome to hang out here if you don't feel like going back to the boarding house."

"Na, Klaus has compelled Stefan to keep an eye on his doppelganger for him. So you can expect to see him at school today." He told her as he stepped out and shut the door.

"Fun." Katie sighed as she turned and headed to her car.

* * *

She pulled into the parking lot of the busy school and quickly found her friends in the crowd. "Here we are. Senior year." Caroline said with a look across her shoulders at her friends that stood slightly behind her.

"Anyone else think this should feel slightly more empowering?" Bonnie asked as they all looked at the school. None of them felt anything about it being the first day of school.

"Okay, so prank night was a bust. But we are accepting it, and we are moving on." Caroline said talking with her hands as she tried to pep everyone up.

"You're right. I mean why should I let the fact that my boyfriend is seeing the ghosts of his dead girlfriends hinder this experience?" Bonnie asked from where she walked between Katie and Caroline as they started walking toward the school.

"My soul mate is lying desiccated in a coffin with a dagger in his chest." Katie added with a look over at Bonnie and Caroline, ignoring Elena where she stood on the other side of Caroline. "My day is gonna be grrrreat." She said impersonating Tony the Tiger. Bonnie and Caroline shook their heads with small smiles on their faces.

"And why should I let the fact that my boyfriend turned into a hybrid put a damper on an otherwise fabulous day?" Caroline said one again talking with her hands.

Elena stopped walking and said, "Today's our anniversary." They all stopped and looked back at her. "Technically, Stefan and I met on the first day of school last year."

"Are you sure you want to be here?" Bonnie asked.

"I have to be here. I have to put it behind me." She told them as she held her head high. "New year, new life." She heaved out a breath and walked past them toward the school. Katie thought about warning her that Stefan was going to be making an appearance today, but feeling like being mean she kept her mouth shut.

* * *

Katie walked into Alaric's A.p. History class to find that Elena, Caroline and Tyler were also in the class. Stefan walked into the room after her and made someone move out of the seat next to Elena. Katie sat in the back corner of the room kitty corner to Caroline.

Alaric had started talking to the class when Rebekah came in late and sat down in the front row. "Who are you?" Alaric asked confused as to why Caroline and Elena were looking at her with wide eyes.

"My name's Rebekah. I'm new and history is my favorite subject." Alaric looked at Elena and Katie then took a deep breath and got back to business.

Katie was putting her history book in her locker when Rebekah walked over and opened the locker next to hers. "So has Klaus asked you to keep an eye on Elena too?" she asked, in an attempt to make conversation.

"I'm keeping an eye on Tyler." She answered not looking at Katie who shut her locker and put a purple combination lock on it. "Not that it's any of your business."

"Look, I was in a bit of a bad mood last night." Katie said as she watched Rebekah struggle to open the locker without breaking it. Katie hit it lightly with her fist and it popped open. "So can we start over?"

"Just because you're supposedly in love with Elijah doesn't mean you have to be nice to me." she told her with and attitude.

"There's no supposedly about it." Katie argued as she pushed the strap of her bag father up on her shoulder. "I do love Elijah and he told me a lot about you when we were together. He anticipated that we wouldn't get along, but I would like nothing better than to actually be on good terms with his family when that dagger is finally removed." Rebekah glared at her. "I'm not trying to manipulate you. I'm just offering to be your friend when you don't have one."

"Fine, but if I find out this is just some ploy you and your friends have cooked up I will have no problem-"

"Killing me, I get it. Where's your schedule?" Katie interrupted her then held her hand out for her schedule.

"I know how to find my way around." Rebekah told her and Katie smirked.

"I want to see if we have any of the same classes." Katie told her and Rebekah pulled her schedule out of her bag and handed it to her. "We actually have the next three classes together." She handed it back then watched as Rebekah put her history book in her locker then shut it. "Have you ever been to high school before?" Katie asked and Rebekah shook her head no. "I'm guessing you want to be popular. So step one: cheer squad. Thanks to Klaus and Stefan there's an opening and with your looks all the football players will be drooling over you."

"Tyler plays football right?" she asked as they started toward their next class.

"You're interested in Tyler?" Katie asked with a look across her shoulder at her.

"He is very attractive." She answered.

Katie laughed. "Been there had that." She didn't want to point out that Tyler was with Caroline and that she didn't approve of Rebekah's interest in him. She _was_ trying to be her friend after all.

"You and Tyler?" Rebekah asked as they walked into calculus.

"Yep, back when we were both…" she looked around at the other students in the room, "normal for a lack of a better word." The bell rang and the teacher shut the door ending their conversation.

* * *

All the cheerleaders were standing on the side lines of the football field after school stretching when Katie took her spot in the line up. "Hey Care, before she shows up you should probably know that Rebekah is after your guy and I invited her to be on the cheer squad." Katie told her quietly.

"You what?" Caroline asked as she stopped stretching and Katie started. "Have you gone insane?"

"If you call making friends with the sister of the man I love insane then sure." She answered as she leaned down and touched her toes. "But I don't think the whole, keep your friends close keep your enemy closer, thing is a bad idea either." She whispered then stood back up. When Rebekah walked up and took the spot between Katie and Caroline, Caroline didn't say a word.

They were headed to the women's locker room when Rebekah asked, "So are you going to this spirit squad bonfire thing tonight?"

"I never say no to free booze." She answered. "Will I see you there?"

"Yep." She answered. "I've never been to a high school bonfire. Sounds fun."

* * *

Katie was standing in her bathroom straightening her hair for the bonfire when her text tone chimed and she looked down to see a text from Alaric. "Meeting, my classroom, 8:30 tonight before the bonfire." She read out loud then clicked the phone off.

Since she got the message a little late she got to the meeting a late, she trained her ears on Alaric's classroom and caught what they were saying. "I'll lure Stefan away from the bonfire. Then, when he's distracted-" Elena was saying.

"I'll shoot him." Alaric finished.

"What are you doing here?" Elena asked when her eyes landed on Katie.

"Alaric texted me." Katie answered with a tone that suggested it was obvious.

"Was I not supposed to?" Alaric asked with a look between Katie and Elena. Elena shook her head no with raised brows and tight lips. "You said she made friends with Rebekah. I though she could help distract her."

"It's _because_ she's friends with Rebekah and Klaus that we don't trust her." Elena told him.

"I told you why I'm playing nice with Rebekah." Katie said as she turned to Caroline. "And I'm _not_ friends with Klaus."

"You all but admitted that you would do whatever it takes to get Elijah back and Klaus and Rebekah are the only ones who know where he is." Damon told her.

"We can't trust you." Elena told her with a snooty look that made Katie want to slap it off of her face.

"Caroline?" Katie asked as she turned to her friend that she'd been closer to since they turned.

"I'm sorry. I don't like it, but they have a point. If you loved him enough to link yourself to him what else are you willing to do?" Caroline answered.

"Does Bonnie feel the same way you all do?" Katie asked Caroline who nodded with sad eyes knowing this was hurting Katie. And it did hurt her, but hurt quickly turned to anger. It pissed her off to no end that her friends would turn their backs on her like that. "You know what?" she turned her eyes to Elena, Damon and Caroline then back to Elena. "You can all go to hell." She turned to walk out of the room.

"Katie don't be like that." Caroline said as Katie slammed into Tyler who was walking in.

"Whoa, you good?" Tyler asked as he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back.

"Let me get a keg in me then ask me again." Katie commented as she walked around him and out of the room.

* * *

Katie was standing at the bonfire working on her tenth cup of beer still fuming, when a football player class mate of hers walked over. "Happy first day."

"Yeah, not so much." She answered back with a polite smile.

"Are you at least enjoying the bonfire?" he asked trying to make conversation with her, but all she could concentrate on was the blood pumping through his veins.

"I am now." she turned toward him with a flirty smile and put her hand on her hip, putting her boobs on display in the tight somewhat low cut tank top she was wearing.

"You wanna go make some smores?" he asked happy that she was showing interest in him.

"I have a better idea. Come with me." She told him with a devious smile as she grabbed his hand and he willingly followed her out into the woods. When she was sure they were far enough away that no one would see them she shoved him against a tree and looked him in the eyes. "Don't scream." His eyes grew big and his heart started pounding as he watched the veins arrear under her eyes that turned blood red. She smiled with a hiss, freaking him out even more with her fangs. The fear in his eyes only made her that much happier as she sank her teeth into his neck.

After a while she let go of his shoulders and he fell to the ground as she tilted her head back and licked the blood from her lips. "God that felt good." She sighed then looked down at the guy, "Now what do I do with you?" she said as she kneeled down and listened to his slow heart beat.

Knowing he would die if she didn't, she bit her wrist, opened his mouth and let a little blood fall inside. Soon after he sat up and started scrambling away from her. "What did you do to me?"

She grabbed his shirt to keep him for scooting back any further and straddled him as she looked him in the eyes. "We made out. It was fun, but it's never happening again." She told him then let him go. He blinked out of the compulsion then smiled at her. She grabbed his chin and tilted his head to the side to see a little blood that was left behind from the bite so she licked it clean before she stood up and held her hand out to him. When he as standing she looked him in the eyes again. "Don't follow too closely behind me. People don't need to know what we were doing." she left him behind to snap out of his compulsion.

As she walked through the woods back to the party she made sure her face, neck and teeth were free of blood. She came out of the woods behind Damon, sitting on a bench at a small fire. When she walked past him he grabbed her wrist to get her attention. She stopped and looked down at him. "Did you just do what I think you just did?"

"Nope." she answered as she pulled her wrist out of his hand and kept walking.

"You did." He argued as he grabbed her hand pulling her to a stop. "Who are you and what have you done with Katie Cat?" he asked with a worried look at her.

"She's right here. You've just never seen her this pissed off before." she jerked her hand out of his. "Now leave me alone." She started walking off. After a while she got bored of the stupid bonfire that she had yet to see Rebekah at and threw her cup away then headed to the parking lot. She was opening her car door when she saw flames engulf Alaric's SUV. "Seriously, if it's not one thing it's another." She sighed and closed her car door then whooshed over to Alaric. Who was trying to break the window with a lacrosse stick.

"Elena and Stefan are trapped in there." Alaric told her as he pushed his hand through his hair in frustration. Alaric watched her thought process play out on her face as she debating leaving them in the car to burn. "Do something, Katie!"

"I don't have to tell you that vampires and flames are a bad combination. So do _not_ let me burn to death." Alaric rushed off to find something to put the flames out while Katie grabbed the back hatch door, pulled it off and threw it behind her then climbed inside. She got Stefan out first and whooshed him a safe distance away from the car and laid him on the ground then whooshed back inside and wrapped her arm around a coughing Elena's waist and whooshed her out. Regardless of whooshing through the flames, Katie's legs caught on fire as she whooshed out. She dropped Elena and screamed in pain as fell to the ground, slapping at her legs right before Alaric threw a blanket over her them putting out the flames before they could fully engulf her.

"Thanks." Katie huffed out as she got up.

"You're welcome. Now let's get out of here before it blows." He told her and they ran over to where Katie had whooshed Stefan. Just as they got to them, the car exploded.

Stefan started coming to so she grabbed him and helped him stand on his feet. "What happened?" he asked while she held him up with her hands on his shoulders.

"Yeah I don't know." Katie told him as she let go of his shoulders. "You good though?"

"Yeah, no thanks to those two." He told her with a look at Elena and Alaric.

"Okay I'm gonna go home before another car decides to spontaneously combust." She said tiredly and started walking off.

"Katie!" Elena yelled and Katie stopped and turned around. "Thank you."

"I didn't do it for you." she replied then looked at Alaric. "Sorry about your car."

* * *

The next day after school, Katie drove to the cemetery. She hadn't been to her parent's graves since their funeral so it took her a while to remember where the headstone was. After an hour of looking she found it near a large tree the roots of which she sat on and looked at the oval picture of her parents that sat between their names engraved on the stone. "I had been hoping to feel something by coming here…" she admitted quietly looking into her mothers pretty blue eyes. "Anything to keep me tied to my humanity because I can feel it slipping away." She hadn't thought much about her father since she learned that he was still alive and it was his idea to leave her with her grandfather. However the memory of her mother, who didn't want to leave her to be raised by her grandfather, had remained unscathed.

Katie moved from the tree root to sit in the grass where her mother should have been buried, but instead her ashes had been scattered here. She closed her eyes and pressed her right hand into the grass and dirt, trying to feel connected to her mother in any way she could. Trying to remember a time when things weren't so bad.

"_Almost." Her mother encouraged her five year old daughter from where she sat next to her on a piano bench. She was teaching her to play twinkle twinkle little star. Katie touched the wrong key and stopped with a frown. "Don't get aggravated. Practice makes perfect." Her mother told her, but Katie didn't try again._

"_I can't do it." Katie pouted, staring down at her small hands in her lap._

"_You can do anything you set your mind to my little Scarlett." Her mother told her gently and grabbed her daughter's hands, placing them back on the piano keys. "Try again." Katie tried again and finally got it right. "You did it!" her mother made a big deal, clapping and smiling for her daughter. "Good job Katie." Her mother held her hand up and Katie giggled and high fived her._

"Katie." A familiar feminine voice pulled her out of her memory and drew her eyes upward to land on the blue eyes and wavy brown hair of her mother.

"Mom?" Katie asked as she stood up. "What…how…?" Katie stumbled over her words as her mother took a step to her and pulled her into a hug. "How are you here right now? I thought you were dead."

"I am." Her mother answered as she pulled back and looked into her daughter's green eyes. "Your friend Bonnie cracked open the door to the other side when she brought Jeremy Gilbert back from the dead. Then last night, a witched wedged it wide open so we can interact with you." her mother told her, but Katie was still stuck on the fact that she was talking to her dead mother. "I've been watching over you this whole time."

A pained expression took over Katie's face as her eyes slipped down to the ground. "I've disappointed you."

"No sweetheart, you haven't." her mother answered making Katie look up at her with questioning eyes. "I disappointed you. I never wanted to leave you behind and I never should have. Your father wanted to keep the originals away from you he said it was his family's duty to keep who you are a secret. When he told me the story of you and Elijah I wanted you to find him. I didn't want to keep you from someone you loved so much you tied yourself to him for eternity." She told her. "The whole thing sounded like some bazaar fairly tale."

"So you're not mad at me for becoming a vampire?" Katie asked.

"No sweetheart." Her mother shook her head and tears started slipping down Katie's cheeks. "I always assumed you would make your choice when the time came. I never hated vampires as much as your father did, but he was raised to hate them just like the founders of this town."

"Then why did he become a vampire?" Katie asked. "Why did you?"

"Because he thought it was the only way to protect you." she answered. "He talked me into it. You're father was always good at talking me into things." She laughed.

"How did you die?" Katie asked, wanting to fill in one a blank.

"After we turned your father and I started fighting about what was best for you. He wanted to find Elijah and Klaus and keep them from you. I thought the best thing for you was to be under Elijah's protection until you were old enough to be given your memories and decide if you wanted to be with him." Katie listened tentatively. "I became involved with some witches, attempting to track down Elijah." she walked around Katie and sat down on her side of the headstone. Katie turned, keeping her eyes on her mother. "Your father found out what I was doing and…stopped me."

"_He_ killed you?" Katie asked with wide unbelieving eyes.

"He didn't mean to. He was aiming to throw the stake at my neck, but his aim was horrible and he hit my heart." Hatred flashed in Katie's eyes. "Do not hate him, Katie. He was doing what he was raised to do. He genuinely thought he was protecting everyone, including you."

"How am I not supposed to hate the man that left me to be raised by an abusive grandfather and killed my mother?" Katie asked with wide watery eyes.

"He is still your family. Your true family." Her mother told her.

"If he really cared about me he would have come back." Katie argued.

"Maybe so, but do me a favor after you graduate go find him and talk to him." she asked and Katie just stared at her. "You need to talk this out with him Katie. Make him see that you are okay. Promise me."

"I promise." Katie nodded.

"About your recent decisions…" her mother started with a stern look and a lifted brow. "You are a good, loyal friend. Get over your anger and find a way to remind your friends that you haven't changed."

"But I have changed, Mom." Katie argued.

"You have. You're stronger, more stubborn, you grew a back bone. But you still love your friends." her mother pointed out. "You're upset with Elena and rightfully so. But you have been friends with her since you shared a play pen with her and Matt. Work it out with her or you will lose her. Caroline and Bonnie too. I've seen many groups of friends divide over conflicts like yours and I don't want to see that happen to your little group." Katie bit her lip and looked down at her mothers white Keds. "Look at me Katie Scarlette." Her mother told her in the authoritative voice she remembered. "Fix things with them."

"I don't think I can." Katie looked up at her mother realizing that it had grown dark out.

"You can and you will." Her mother assured her. "Now, when it comes to the originals." Her mother started with a stern face. "Klaus killed you and doesn't have a good reputation. Don't trust him. Rebekah is wishy washy so trust her at your own risk. Elijah, he's noble and keeps his word, him you can trust, but I'm sure you know that since Sheila's spell had been lifted. I wouldn't have been looking for him if I didn't trust his reputation." She brushed Katie's hair out of her face. "I never got the chance to give you love advice and I don't think we have much more time so I'll give you a crash course. First, if it feels like he isn't treating you right then he probably isn't so don't put up with it. If he ever hits you, leave him then and there. Don't wait for it to get worse or make excuses. And lastly, follow your heart."

"And if my heart and my head say two different things?" Katie asked.

"Always go with your heart." Her mother answered.

"What if my heart leads me down a dark path?" Katie asked again making her mother smile.

"You still don't listen very well. What did I just tell you?" she asked.

Katie looked down at her hands and smiled, "Always go with your heart. You realize you're giving me conflicting advice right?" She looked up expecting to see her mother, but she was gone. "Mom?" she looked around but didn't see her anywhere in the dark cemetery. "Momma?" When no answer came a tears slipped down her face and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.

* * *

The next afternoon she got a call from Alaric. "Hey, you have an extensive knowledge of the original family right?" He asked after she answered the phone.

"You could say that. Why?" she asked skeptically.

"I need your help with something." he told her.

"I'm not helping people who don't trust me." She said as she shook her head and shrugged.

"I trust you." he told her making her feel like crying.

"You are working with Elena and Damon. You may trust me but they don't. So it's nothing personal but I can't help you."

"Okay. Never mind then." Alaric replied then hung up.

* * *

After sitting around the house by herself for the most part of the day she decided she didn't feel like being by herself. Since her friends no longer trusted her Katie went to the store, bought the three classic flavors of ice cream, Oreos, peanut butter and milk and headed to the boarding house. "Rebekah?" she called letting herself inside.

"In here." Rebekah's voice came from the kitchen and Katie found her sitting at the bar with a drink in her hand. "What do you want?"

"To hang out with the only friend I still have." Katie answered as she walked around the bar and set the bags down.

"What are you talking about?" Rebekah asked with a frown.

"I'm friends with you and I didn't tell Klaus to stick it where the sun don't shine. So now they believe I will do whatever it takes to get Elijah back." Katie answered as she took the junk food out of the plastic bags. "I'm _untrustworthy_." She rolled her eyes then threw the bags in the trash. "So how's your day been?"

"Your friend Elena informed me that Klaus killed my mother." Rebekah told her and Katie froze.

"I thought Mikael killed your mother." Katie pointed out with a frown.

"Your friends found a cave under this town that my siblings and I used to play in. It was filled with hieroglyphics that told the story of our family including my mother's death." She told her.

"Damn. Sounds like you could use this more than me." Katie said with a motion to the pints of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream.

"Ice cream?" She asked with a look at the containers.

"And Oreos with peanut butter or milk for dipping." She answered as she put the milk in the ice box.

"Do I look twelve to you?" Rebekah deadpanned.

"Okay. I'll eat it myself." Katie said with a shrug as she put her hand on top of the pint of strawberry ice cream, but Rebekah snatched it out from under her hand. Katie fought the smile that wanted to take over her lips as she grabbed two spoons out of the drawer and handed Rebekah one then grabbed the vanilla ice cream for her.

"So people really dip Oreos in peanut butter?" Rebekah asked with an indecisive face.

"Yeah, I hear it's good, but I don't eat Oreos." Katie answered as she stabbed the spoon into the white ice cream. "Or any kind of chocolate for that matter." She added as she grabbed the chocolate ice cream and stuck it in the freezer.

"What is wrong with you?" Rebekah asked making Katie laugh because she got that reaction every time she told someone she didn't like chocolate.

"I grew up in a house with a grandfather who didn't allow me to eat sugar." She explained. "By the time I got old enough to disobey him my taste buds were kind of locked in place. Vanilla and strawberry is about as sweet as I can handle."

"Anyone ever tell you you're weird?" she asked then put a spoon full of pink ice cream in her mouth then turned the spoon upside down and pulled it out.

"All the time." She told her then took a bite of ice cream. "So…I can't help but wonder…what all did Elijah tell you about me after Klaus killed me?"

"He said you were wildly beautiful, heard headed, strong willed and you couldn't cook to save your life. He also mentioned your songbird voice." Rebekah answered and Katie smiled. "If I'm being honest I don't get the wildly beautiful part."

"My hair was different back then. More copper than auburn and a huge mess of tight curls." Katie pulled up a picture of the sketch that had been drawn of her, Jonah and Ronan. "This is me/Hannah." She turned the phone around.

"Other than the hair and lack of freckles you look the same." Rebekah observed and Katie closed out the photo.

"This is going to sound nosy, but…"

"You want to know about his past romances." Rebekah said with a know it all smile and Katie nodded. "Elijah's only had a few romances over the last thousand years. You were one of the greatest and longest. Klaus really hurt him when he killed you." She told her as she scooped ice cream out of the carton. "Now that I think about it, you should probably run." She told her as they both took a bite.

Katie swallowed with a frown. "Why?"

"Because Elijah's history with women is somewhat tragic." Rebekah told her and Katie grabbed her ice cream and hopped up on the kitchen cabinet behind her. Rebekah looked at her through narrowed eyes. "I don't know if I should be telling you this."

"Please?" Katie stabbed her spoon into the ice cream. "I don't want to be blind sided by anything when I finally get him back."

Rebekah thought about it for a second. "Fine. The first woman I ever knew of him loving was the first doppelganger, Tatia. He and Niklaus both loved her actually." Rebekah told her and Katie breathed in a deep breath and held it for a second before she let it out. "This displeases you?"

"Let's just say I have a very strong dislike for the two doppelgangers I've met." Katie answered, but made herself get over it because Tatia is dead. "How'd she die?"

"Our mother killed her for her blood to use in the ritual that turned us into what we are." Rebekah answered. "I believe you've met his second love." Rebekah said and Katie cocked her head to the side in confusion. "Katerina Petrova."

"Please tell me you're joking." Katie said with a slightly angry tilt of her head and Rebekah shook her head no. "Is there a man alive that skank hasn't slept with?"

"You really hate Katherine don't you?" Rebekah asked with an amused smile.

"Hate isn't a strong enough word." Katie answered the hopped down off of the bar, set her ice cream on the counter and placed her palms on it for support. "Keep going please."

"There's only two more that I know of. A witch named Celeste who was killed because of Klaus. Then you…also killed by Klaus." She finished and Katie was glad that there were no more doppelgangers notched into Elijah's metaphorical bed post. "Like I said, his love life is tragic." Rebekah noticed Katie's face and her hand that rested on her stomach. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah I'm just…processing." Katie answered staring down at her ice cream.

"Hey you asked." Rebekah laughed. "You had to know you weren't the only one he'd ever been with."

"It's not the amount of women that's bothering me." Katie answered. "It's the two doppelgangers." She said then snapped out of her shock and put the lid back on her ice cream, her spoon in the dish washer and put the ice cream container in a plastic bag to take the rest of it home. "Thank you for well, being a friend to me when I don't have any, but I think it's time for me to go home." She grabbed the bag and took her keys out of her pocket as she headed to the front door.

When she opened the door she slammed into Damon. "Hey." He pushed her back and tried to make eye contact with her but she looked down and brushed past him out the door. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Damon just leave me alone for once." She felt him grab her hand and she tried to jerk it away, but his grip was too tight. "Let go of me." She practically growled at him.

"Did Rebekah do something to you?" he asked.

She glared up at him. "You do not get to ask me questions. The last time I answered one you used it against me. Thanks to you I have no one."

"You still have me." He told her and a fire ignited behind her eyes.

"I lost you the second you got yourself involved in yet another doppelganger love triangle." She practically spat the words at him. "Now let me go before I make you." she told him through gritted teeth.

Damon let go of her and lifted his hands in surrender. "Just do me a favor and don't eat another football player."

"I'll do whatever the hell I feel like doing." She told him as she walked away.

**A/N:** I have rewritten this chapter at least three times and I'm still not satisfied with it. I feel like I'm making her too dramatic, but at the same time when vampires hurt they really hurt. So as always reviews, favorites and follows are always very much appreciated.


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N:** If you want to see the dress Katie is wearing for homecoming, google image search, corset semi formal dresses. It will be the sixth picture with a pink and black, and white and black version of the dress pictured.

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 30**

Over the next week Katie didn't talk to any of her friends. She simply went to school, came home, did her homework and had a blood bag while getting caught up on one of her favorite tv show's, Supernatural.

Even though she didn't feel like going, after school Friday Katie went shopping and managed to find a suitable dress for the homecoming dance. With the clear plastic covered dress and a paper shopping bag containing jewelry and shoes in her hands she opened her front door. The things in her hands went flying when her eyes landed on Klaus sitting on her living room couch. "Did I frighten you, love?" he asked as he stood up and picked her dress up off the floor.

"You think?" she asked sarcastically as she kneeled down, and picked up the empty shoe box. "What are you doing here?" she picked up the closed toe black heels by the ankle straps and set them back in the box.

"I've come to accompany you to your homecoming dance." He answered.

She stood up, looking at him like he was crazy. "You run off and leave your sister behind with no explanation then show up out of nowhere and assume that I want anything to do with you?" she asked as she put her things on the back of the couch. "I'll ask again. What are you doing here?"

Klaus looked at her with suspicious eyes. "Either you are a really good actress or you have no idea what your friends are planning."

"Both" she answered then let her eyes fall to her hand that rested on the back of the couch. "My _friends_ no longer trust me so if they are plotting against you…I know nothing about it. Since I have nothing to offer…you can see yourself out. I have a dance to get ready for." She headed toward the stairs against the wall to the right of the entryway, but he sped in front of her stopping her. She heaved out an aggravated breath and put her hands on her hips as she glared up at him.

"You wanted to know how to sway me?" he asked and she gave him a nod. "You know your friends better than I. You will be able to sense if something is off with them. Stefan and Rebekah have both assured me that Mikael has been daggered. I do not believe it. So stand with me tonight, help me insure that my father is dead and his dagger destroyed and I will let you watch me pull the dagger out of Elijah. Yours will be the first face he sees when he opened his eyes."

She chewed on the inside of her lip and looked at the floor in thought. She knew that if she did this, everyone she was close to would have nothing to do with her, but she'd already lost them. Her mother had told her to make up with them, but she had meant it when she told her mother she didn't think she could. "Okay." She looked up at him feeling sick to her stomach with nerves. "I'll be your date." She wrinkled her nose at the words that left her mouth.

"Then you should probably start getting dressed." He told her with a look at the clock in the room. She grabbed her dress and bags and headed up the stairs. "Wait." She stopped and looked over the hand rail at him. "Cell phone, please. I don't want you giving your friends a heads up." He held his hand out for her phone so she took it out of her pocket and dropped it over the rail into his out stretched hand.

An hour later she walked down the stairs, her blond and red hair pinned in a messy, but pretty up do. A plain black choker was around her neck and paired nicely with the one shoulder white dress. Black lace covered the shoulder strap on her left shoulder, swooped across the bodice, wrapped almost completely around the waist then tapered off along the left side of the short tulle skirt. Classic closed toe back heels with a strap around the ankle finished off the look. "Well don't you clean up nicely?" Klaus asked from the bottom of the stairs where she met him.

"It's my last homecoming dance." She answered and when he held out his suit jacket covered arm she walked past him.

"I've commandeered your homecoming dance. The gym randomly flooded so Tyler graciously offered to move the dance to his house. It is now a wake for my father." He told her with a smirk then opened the front door and jerked his head for her to walk out.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?" she asked as she walked out then waited for him to close her door.

"Not at the moment, no." he answered as he pulled the door shut then held his arm out for her again and once again she walked past him and down the steps. Her heels clacked against the cement walkway as she headed to her car.

"You know you can touch me. I won't bite." He told her as he walked around to the passenger side and opened the door.

"Yeah," she scoffed as she slid into the driver's seat and shut the door, "You'll understand if I don't believe you." Klaus just smirked at her.

* * *

When Katie parked outside the Lockwood's house lights and music were coming from the back yard and when they went inside the house she saw several kegs and coolers sitting around. They passed a beer pong table as they headed to the back yard where the band was practicing. "Should I be worried at how good you are at throwing high school parties?" she asked with a look over at him from where they stood on the back steps that led down to where a dance floor had been set up.

He smirked. "I'm no stranger to throwing lavish parties. I simply modified the age group a bit." He told her then pulled her phone out of his jacket pocket and looked to see if she had any messages. "I see you finally changed your background and not one of your friends has messaged you. Including my sister whose number I see is in your contacts."

"We're on the cheer team together." Katie replied deciding that it would be best if he didn't know she and Rebekah were friends.

"Oh, look, the photo trash folder. Wonder what could be in here?" he asked with a devious look at her.

Her eyes went wide when she remembered she never deleted the naughty photos she had sent to Damon. "Do not look in there!" she jumped and tried to grab the phone from him but he easily dodged her and opened the folder filling the screen with pictures of her in different poses, only wearing lingerie. "Klaus!"

"Bloody hell, love, are you secretly a lingerie model?" he asked with a cheeky smile and wide eyes. Pissed, she knocked him to his knees, taking him off guard enough that she was able to grab her phone from his hand. "You will give me that back." he told her with a glare.

"Yeah, I will, as soon as I clear out all the pictures I don't want you to see." She told him not looking up from screen she was tapping on. When she was done she tossed him the phone back.

He turned the screen on to see that it was now password protected. He turned it off and tucked it onto his pocket. "Your class mates are starting to arrive." As he said this, the band started really playing instead of practicing and random people came out of nowhere and started dancing.

"Who are all these people?" she asked not recognizing a single one of them.

"My hybrids." He answered as he turned to her. "When your classmates start showing up do me a favor. Pretend to be enjoying yourself and stick to my side like glue." He told her so she nodded. "And smile." He told her with a smile of his own in a voice that was meant to pep her up. "You look like your dog just died." She pulled her lips back in an awkward smile. "Now you just look constipated." He complained with an eye roll and she stopped. "Make it believable."

"I'm at a party with you because I'm stupidly trusting you to stick to your word and not stab me in the back with the dagger you may or may not pull out of Elijah." She told him with a glare. "I will pep up when the time comes. Until then I'm not going to waste my energy." She replied.

"You think I will not keep my promise to you?" he asked with a tone that suggested he was hurt, but she didn't believe it.

"You're reputation isn't the greatest." She answered with a cold tone.

He stepped up to her and grabbed her chin gently with his long nimble fingers. "Trust me when I say I will bring you to Elijah as soon as I see my father's corpse."

She glared at him, her eyes meeting his blues as she grabbed his wrist and took his hand from her face. "I'll trust you when you earn it."

As soon as everyone was at the party Klaus held his arm out to her. So she hooked hers through it and walked up on stage as the band stopped playing and the crowd cheered and clapped. The vanilla scent of the smoke machine that sat on the stage filled her nose as they walked over to the microphone and Klaus dropped his arm and placed his hand on her lower back. "Good evening everyone!" he greeted the crowd that cheered again. "I want to thank you all for being here with me to celebrate. It's been a long time coming."

As they walked down off the stage Katie looked over at him then his arm that was still on her lower back. "What the hell am I supposed to tell people if they ask me why I'm here with you?"

"I don't know." He told her as they walked through the crowd and when she noticed her classmates looking at her and Klaus she smiled at them as if nothing at all was wrong in her life when in actuality she was screaming on the inside.

"Klaus." Stefan said as they walked over to him. "Quite the homecoming." He chose to completely ignore Katie who stood next to Klaus with her arm looped through his and a look on her face that let everyone believe she was enjoying herself.

"I've been planning my father's funeral for 1,000 years." Klaus replied. "Granted, in no version of it were any of these people invited. But you get the idea."

"So what now? You just stop running?" Stefan asked.

"Now I reunite my family." Klaus told him then glanced down at Katie.

Stefan finally looked at her with his usual brooding expression then back at Klaus. "Your family. You mean, the people you cart around in caskets?"

"None of that matters anymore." Klaus looked away from Katie to Stefan. "Mikael's gone. Bygones will be bygones and Elijah will be happy I kept his woman happy and safe." he looked back down at Katie who made herself give him a closed lipped smile.

"So that's what this is about?" Stefan asked moving his finger between the two of them. "Taking care of your bother's girl while he lies in a casket with a dagger in his chest that you placed there?"

"It's really no different than Damon and Elena." Katie spoke for the first since the party started. "The only difference is there is absolutely zero chance of _me_ falling for _him_." Katie said with a jerk of her head at Klaus.

"Really great party." The homecoming queen said as she walked by them, her pretty crown atop her head. "I really like the band."

Klaus smiled at her smugly. "Seems the homecoming queen still walks among the living, which leaves me to believe Rebekah isn't here. Where is she?" he asked Stefan.

"I have no idea. I thought she was coming with Matt." Stefan answered making Katie look around to see Matt standing with Elena. Katie's eyes also spotted Caroline chatting with people while getting a refill of beer from the keg.

"Oh, be honest now, Stefan." Klaus told him knowing Stefan couldn't lie to him since he had been compelled to tell the truth. "Where's my sister?"

"I said…I have no idea." Stefan answered again and a tense second passed between the three of them.

"Well, it wouldn't he a party without the guest of honor, would it?" Klaus asked with a smug smile. "Bring him to me."

Stefan looked off in the distance in thought for a second. "Alright. Perhaps there's something in it for me?" Klaus and Katie both looked at him curiously. "My freedom from your compulsion."

"Oh, you want your freedom?" Klaus asked with a tilt of his head. "Well once he's dead and his weapon destroyed, you'll have your freedom. It would be my pleasure to give it back to you." Stefan gave them a tight lipped smile as he walked away.

"Klaus." Katie said getting his attention. "Stefan was telling the truth, Rebekah was supposed to come with Matt, but he's here with Elena. Elena should be here with Damon. He never says no to a party so there has to be a reason he's not here." Klaus looked at Elena and Matt who were both drinking beer out of glass bottles. "And by the way…you're keeping me safe and happy?" she asked with raised brows. "You couldn't come up with a more believable lie?"

"Who said it was a lie?" he asked with a smirk.

Katie gave him a challenging look. "You wanna make me happy?"

"All in due time, Love." He told the impatient Katie.

"I need more beer." She sighed so Klaus walked them over to one of the igloo coolers, lifted the lid then motioned for her to pick her poison. She didn't even look. She just grabbed the cold bottle, popped the cap off and chunked it aside as Tyler walked over to them. Klaus grabbed a beer of his own the shut the lid of the cooler.

"My mom would seriously freak if she saw all these people here." Tyler said with a look out at the dance floor packed with people like tuna in a can.

Klaus smiled as he looked at his handy work. "You're mother won't be a problem. I've compelled her to go to church and pray for your friends."

Tyler laughed. "What are you talking about?"

Klaus let go of Katie's arm and walked around to stand in front of Tyler. "I want you to look around. There's Bonnie." He pointed over Tyler's shoulder to Bonnie who was talking to a guy. "There's Elena and Matt." He pointed to Elena who took a drink from a beer then handed it to Matt. "And there's your pretty little girlfriend Caroline." He pointed to Caroline talking to the group of cheerleaders. "Their big dance was wrecked tonight and who came through with a party?" Tyler looked back at Klaus. "You did. What a pal. But who are all these other people?" Klaus asked with a point over his shoulder.

Tyler looked around with creased brows. "I…have no idea. I've never seem half these people in my life."

"Well, that's because I invited a few dozen friends of my own." Klaus answered then started pointing out his people in the crowd.

"Hold on, are those people all hybrids?" Tyler asked with a frown.

"Well, they also love a good party." Klaus said as he took a step closer to Tyler. "And they, like you, are sired by me. They wish to serve their master. So if anyone should so much as make a move against me, they may feel obligated to retaliate." Klaus' serious face turned into a smile as he backed away from Tyler. "Feel free to warn your friends."

"I assumed that he assumed you'd sired more hybrids as soon as you got Elena's blood donation and skipped town." Katie said as she watched Tyler go into the house like a man on a mission.

"That is because you are smart." Klaus said as they started walking around. "And thanks to my brother you probably know me better than anyone else here tonight." He smiled down at her and she shifted her gaze elsewhere. When they walked past Elena, Klaus stopped. "Where's your date?"

"Getting me a drink." Elena answered stiffly.

Klaus held the beer in his hand out to her and she gave him a look that said, 'seriously?'

"Seems I have you to thank for Mikael's demise." Klaus told her.

"He came at me. I didn't have a choice." Elena once again answered stiffly.

"Still I'm impressed. It's not easy for a human to dagger an original." Klaus said and Katie rolled her eyes and took a big drink of the beer in her hand.

"It wasn't my first time." Elena told him with a sneer.

"Right. Elijah. I'm sure that won a lot of points in her book." He said with a jerk of his head to Katie then looked around at the crowd. As he did Elena looked around as if she was expecting someone to jump out at her. "You seem nervous."

"I'm not nervous. I just don't like you." Elena told him with an attitude.

"Right. I'll just get straight to the point then shall I love?" he asked then leaned in closer to her. "People have been after me for 1,000 years. And I am always one step ahead. So whatever it is you're thinking of trying, go for it. Give it your best shot. You won't succeed."

"It won't be for a lack of trying." Elena answered with a bit of a head sway and a glare and tried to walk off, but Klaus let go of Katie and stopped her.

"Now, you'd be smart to tell Damon to mind his manners tonight. 'Cause if I die, I've already insured that he'll die along with me." Kaite's heart stopped at his words. "Even in death, my hybrids have their orders. So, you kill me you're killing him too."

"What?" Katie asked with wide eyes.

"All the more reason for everyone to cooperate." He told her with a smirk as her shock turned to a glare.

Elena walked away while she had the chance. "Can we do something more fun than just walking around please?" she asked just wanting find ways to get the night over with.

"What do you suggest?" he asked.

"We can go kick some stupid jock's ass at beer pong." She suggested and he actually took her up on it.

As they were playing the guy she had drank from at the bonfire walked up. "Hey, Katie." He greeted getting a little too in her personal space.

"Hey…you." she told him as she took a step away from him.

"Oh, don't pretend like you don't know my name. We did make out the other night after all." He said with a shitty attempt at being flirty catching Klaus' attention and he gave her a look that seemed to ask, you and this guy?

She looked at him and whispered, "I really need to work on my compulsion." Then looked back at the guy. "I'm pretty sure I told you that's never going to happen again."

"Yeah but-" he started.

"Is this guy bothering you?" Klaus asked as he stepped up beside her and draped his arm over her shoulders.

"Who the hell are you?" the guy asked with a challenging attitude.

Katie breathed in a hiss between her teeth. "That was _not_ the road you should've taken." She cut her eyes up at Klaus. "Don't kill him, please."

"I'm her date." Klaus answered then grabbed the guy up by his dress shirt and looked him in the eyes. "And it would be wise of you to remember, when a woman says it's never going to happen again…You should stop pursuing her." he threw the guy away and he fell to the floor on his butt knocking down a tower of beer empty beer cans that someone had made.

The guy was standing back up when Mindy, one of Klaus' hybrids, came over to them. "You have a visitor."

"Well, tell my visitor I'm on the brink of victory here." He told her with the white ping pong ball in his hand.

"He said his name was Mikael." She told him with a sway of her head.

Klaus sighed and tossed the ball into the rinse cup. "Then we mustn't keep him waiting." He told her as he dropped his hand from Katie's lower back. "Move everyone out back. I'm going to have a little chat with my dad."

Mindy started moving everyone out of the house and to the back yard as Katie and Klaus headed to the front door. An older man stood on the other side of the threshold. "Hello, Niklaus." He greeted him ignoring Katie who stood not far behind and to the side of him.

"Hello, Mikael. Won't you come in?" He asked. "Oh, that's right. I forgot. You can't."

"Or you can come outside if you want." Mikael replied.

"Or I can watch my hybrids tear you limb from limb." Klaus retorted as his hybrids gathered on the front lawn behind Mikael.

"They can't kill me." Mikael pointed out.

"True, but it'll make a hell of a party game." Klaus said with a smug smile. "All I have to do is rub these two fingers together," he held up his right hand, his thumb and middle finger centimetres apart, "and they'll pounce." He touched the fingers together.

"The big…bad…wolf." Mikael said and Klaus dropped his hand. "You haven't changed. Still hiding behind your playthings like a coward." Katie frowned at the guy who called himself Klaus' father. "Though you forget, they may be sired by you, but they're still part vampire and they can be compelled by me." As he said this Mindy walked over to stand beside Mikael and pulled Elena into view. Katie looked at Elena with glaring eyes. "Come out and face me, Niklaus, or she dies." He grabbed Elena from Mindy by her arm.

"Go ahead, kill her." Klaus told him and Katie looked between him and Mikael then to Elena.

"No, Klaus, he'll do it." something about the way Elena was acting didn't sit well with her, especially when Elena didn't look at her for help.

"If she dies, this lot will be the last of your abominations." Mikael told him with a jerk of his head to the hybrids that still stood in the front yard.

"I don't need them. I just need to be rid of you." Klaus told him with his fists clenched at his sides.

"To what end, Niklaus?" Mikael asked. "So you can live forever with no one at your side?" Katie glared at Mikael. She understood what kind of person Klaus could be, but if this hateful man is the one who raised Klaus…Then it's no wonder Klaus turned out the way he is. Elijah had told her how abusive and hard Mikael was on his children, especially Niklaus. After everything she had been though, two rounds of shitty parents and a shitty grandfather, she had grown a special hatred of men like Mikael. "Nobody cares about you anymore, _Boy_!"

The way he called Klaus boy caused something in her to snap. "Not true." she stepped up to the door to stand beside Klaus. "I do."

Mikael finally acknowledged her. "He killed you and yet you stand with him."

"You're an abusive piece of shit and a pathetic excuse of a father." Katie answered with a glare, hatred dancing in her eyes. "If standing against men like you puts me on his side then I am perfectly okay with that."

Klaus put his hand on Katie's lower back. "I'm calling your bluff father. Kill her."

Katie noticed that Klaus' words should have affected Elena more than they did, she had been listening to Elena's heart and it had remained fast, but steady. "Come outside and face me, you little coward, and I won't have to."

"My whole life you've underestimated me." Klaus said and as Katie moved her eyes from Mikael and Elena to Klaus she saw just how much Mikael was affecting him. He looked to be on the verge of tears. "If you kill her, you lose your leverage. So go ahead. Go on, kill her." Mikael just looked at Klaus with a slight shake of his head. "Come on, old man. Kill her. Kill her!" Klaus yelled and Katie looked up at him to see a tear slip down his cheek.

Mikael started chuckling. "You're impulse, Niklaus. It has and will forever be the one thing keeping you from truly being great." Klaus and Mikael stared each other down for a second before Mikael stabbed Elena in the back making her let out odd sounding groans of pain before she fell to the ground.

Mikael laughed at Klaus' look of shock, but Katie trained her ears on Elena to hear her heart still beating strong. "Klaus." Katie said to get his attention, but at the same time Damon whooshed in from behind them and stabbed Klaus in the gut with an extravagantly carved, old stake. Klaus yelled out in pain. "Klaus!" she yelled as Damon body slammed him on the floor.

She heard Mikael say, "Katherine." Before Katherine tossed vervain grenades out at the hybrids.

Damon pulled the stake out of Klaus. Katie was making a move to tackle Damon off of Klaus when Stefan came from behind her and beat her too it. Seeing the stake lying on the floor next to Klaus she whooshed over, grabbed it, put it in Klaus' hand and closed his fingers around it then jerked her head to his distracted dad. Klaus gave her a nod then whooshed at his father as he turned around. He tackled him, stabbing him in the heart as he did. Mikael cried out as Klaus stood up and the stake burst into flames catching Mikael on fire too.

"What the hell did you two do?" Damon asked while Stefan held him down.

"He's earned his freedom." Klaus answered then looked at Katie. "She earned my brother." Stefan stood up and moved to stand across from Klaus. They looked each other in the eyes. "Thank you, my friend. You no longer have to do as I say. You're free."

Stefan blinked then looked down to see that Damon was gone then whooshed away. Klaus walked out into the yard and told his hybrids to clear everyone out, the party was over. Still processing everything that just happened, Katie walked into the parlor/living room and sat down on the pretty white couch, leaning forward with her chin resting on her hands that were folded into a fist. Soon, Klaus came in and sat down on the couch across from her. "Thank you."

"For what? I didn't do anything you asked me to. I figured out too late that Elena was really Katherine and I should have known that if Damon wasn't here with her and that he would probably be off doing something sneaky like he did. I completely flopped as a wing woman." She told him, looking down at the fancy area rug.

"Mikael is dead because you put that stake in my hand." He argued.

She shook her head no. "You still would have picked up that stake and killed him. I just saved you a few seconds." She shrugged.

"Then I am thanking you for standing with me when you didn't have to." He told her and she looked up at him. "Why did you?"

"Because you and I have something in common." She answered with a solemn face.

"Pathetic, piece of shit fathers." He told her with a bit of a smirk.

"Yep." She answered with a nod. "I _hate_ seeing people's parents bully them, possibly even more than I hate you."

"You clamed to care about me." He said with a point at her.

"I do in a really screwed up, roundabout way. Rebekah too. You're my soul-mate's family and despite the…_many_ problems you all have with each other, I know how much family mean's to you all." she told him with a shrug. "And after tonight…I have no one."

Klaus stood up and held his hand out for hers. She took it and stood up. When he stepped closer to her and placed his hand on her arm she thought he was going to try to kiss her. Relief spread through her when he placed a soft kiss to her cheek. "Go home. Get some beauty sleep. You'll want to look pretty when I take you to wake up Elijah in the morning."

The thought of getting to see Elijah again brought a bright smile to her face. "See you tomorrow."

* * *

The next morning Klaus picked her up and brought her to the lot where the van that held the coffins containing his family was. "Rebekah where are you?" Klaus said to Rebekah's voice mail as they walked through the parking lot. "Pick up the phone, darling. Daddy's dead. It's time for a family reunion." Klaus hung up then answered an incoming call. "Stefan. Miss me already?"

"I'm just calling to thank you for my freedom." Stefan said as they walked by truck after truck.

"I like to believe I'm a man of my word. More or less." Klaus replied cockily.

"The thing is, it came at too high of a price." Stefan told him and both Katie and Klaus frowned. "You took everything from me, Klaus."

"Let bygones be bygones. Trust me, resentment gets old." Klaus told him as he stopped at the back of a truck and grabbed the latch of the back.

"You know what never gets old?" Stefan asked as Klaus unlatched the back and pushed it up. "Revenge." The back of the truck was empty making Katie's heart sink to the pit of her stomach.

"No." Klaus practically growled into the phone as Katie placed her hand on her stomach.

"What's the matter, Klaus? Missing something?" Stefan asked smugly.

"What are you doing?" Klaus asked, walking away from the truck that Katie was leaning on. "Other than breaking Katie's heart?"

"I'm just enjoying my freedom. Her broken heart is a small price to pay." Stefan answered as Katie's disappointment turned to anger and she felt the blood rush to her eyes and fangs in her mouth.

"I will kill you and everyone you've ever met." Klaus threatened.

"You do that and you'll never see your family again." Stefan said as Klaus turned and looked at Katie. "I wonder, Klaus. As someone who's been one step ahead for 1,000 years. Were you prepared for this?"

Klaus glared at no one in particular as he took the phone from his ear and hung up. After a few seconds he turned to Katie and saw her face. "If you don't kill him, I will." She told him as she closed her eyes pushed back the blood and fangs.

"I know, love." He told her as he slid his hand over her face. Too made to be touched she knocked his hand away. "We will get them back."

"_We_ aren't doing a damn thing." she told him with a fire in her eyes like he had never seen. If he had to guess, Stefan was going to pay dearly for what he had done. She whooshed away.

* * *

Katie went to the boarding house and saw Elena and Damon in the parlor so she whooshed over, grabbed Damon by the neck and pinned him to the wall next to the fire place. "Where is Stefan?" she asked more furious than either of them had ever seen her.

"I don't know." Damon rasped.

"What is wrong with you put him down!" Elena yelled at her, worry clear in her voice.

It didn't even faze Katie. "Were you in on it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Damon rasped, his hands on her wrist.

"Katie let him go!" Elena yelled at her again.

Katie turned to her showing Elena the blood that had flooded to her eyes. "If you know what is good for you, you will shut your fucking mouth." She looked back at Damon. "Stefan took him. He took Elijah." An angry tear slipped down her cheek.

"We had nothing to do with it. I promise. I wouldn't do that to you." Damon told her and the honesty in his eyes made her drop him.

As soon as she did he tackled her face down on the ornate rug with her hands held behind her back. Over the few seconds it took Elena to get a syringe of vervain all anger faded and tears silently slipped down her cheeks. Damon stabbed her in the neck with the syringe and she slowly slipped off to sleep.

When she came to she was lying across Damon's bed, him leaning back against the headboard with his legs draped over hers. "You wanna have a rational conversation or are you going to attack me again?"

"I'm sorry." She said as she pulled herself up to sit cross legged in the middle of the bed.

"I know you are." Damon answered. "I of all people know how much Elijah means to you." Katie pulled her knees up and hugged them. "So what kind of deal did you make with Klaus?"

She rested her chin on her arms. "If I helped him kill Mikael he'd give me Elijah. He was going to…he brought me to the truck that their coffins were stored in. That's when we learned that Stefan took them to get back at him for everything Klaus had took from him. According to Stefan my broken heart was a small price to pay for the satisfaction of revenge." She wiped at her wet face with her hands.

"His humanity is off. He doesn't care about any one but himself." Damon told her with a face that told her she was supposed to already know that. "What did you think would happen when you got him back?" Damon asked.

"I didn't think that far ahead." She answered as she slid off the bed. She started for his bedroom door but he zipped over blocking the door. "What are you going to do, keep me prisoner in your room from now on?"

"Nope. I just want you to promise me that you won't make any more deals with Klaus." He told her with a determined look.

"I'm done making promises to you that I can't keep. So either vervain me again and put me out of my misery or let me go." Damon stepped out of the way and watched her walk out of the door.

* * *

The next day Katie was sitting at the grill having lunch at a far corner table listening to Damon and Elena play darts and talk about how Jeremy was backsliding when Klaus came in. "I'm surprised you stuck around town long enough for happy hour." Damon told Klaus while Elena stood safely behind him.

"My sister seems to be missing. I need to sort that out." Klaus told him.

"Cute, blonde bombshell, psycho?" Damon asked. "Shouldn't be too hard to find."

Klaus took a few steps closer to Damon. "Truth is, I've grown to rather like your little town. I'm thinking I might fancy a home here." Klaus took a dart out of Damon's hand. "I imagine you're wondering how does this affect you. The answer is not in the slightest." He turned to the dart board, putting his back to Damon and Elena. "As long as I get what I want and everyone behaves themselves, you can go on living your little lives however you choose." He turned and looked over his shoulder at Elena and Damon. "You have my word."

"What more could you possibly want?" Elena asked.

"Well, for starters, you can tell me where I might find Stefan." Klaus told her as he walked over to her and leaned down at her.

"Stefan skipped town the second he saved your ass." Damon answered.

"Well, you see, that is a shame." Klaus said as he turned to the dartboard. He threw a dart landing it deep in the bull's eye. "You're brother stole from me. I need him found so I can take back what's mine."

"That sounds like a Klaus, Stefan and Katie problem." Elena replied.

Klaus walked over to Elena but Damon stepped in the way. Katie scoffed and shook her head making Klaus' eyes find her where she sat in the corner of the room, unseen by Damon or Elena. He turned his eyes back to Elena. "Well, this is me broadening the scope, Sweetheart." He told her making her frown. Klaus headed over to the bar and grabbed a beer then walked over to Katie, making Damon and Elena realize for the first time that she was even there. "Hello, love." He slid into the corner booth to sit across from her and she ignored him, keeping her eyes on the book sitting in front of her. "Have you heard from my sister?" he asked.

Instead of answering him with words, knowing that Damon and Elena were listening, she closed her book and pulled out her journal and a pen. He watched her write, _"If Damon and Elena have her she'll most likely be in a cell in their basement." _in the book and turned it to him as she stood from the booth and took a final drink of her lemon water. When he was done reading it he looked up at her with a smirk. She grabbed her journal, book and pen and shoved them into her messenger bag.

She started to walk off but he grabbed her wrist stopping her. "Don't ignore me, love. Answer the question."

She understood what he was doing, keeping Damon and Elena from knowing that she had giving him a secret message. "The last time I saw her was at school yesterday." She told him and he let go of her wrist and let her walk away.

She was cleaning the kitchen out of the need to do something to keep her mind off things when she got a message from Klaus asking her to meet him at an old house. Against her best judgment and because she was going insane with boredom she met him. "I see you're renovating." Katie said as she walked into the old house seeing Klaus standing in the middle if the entryway waiting for her. "You weren't kidding when you said you thinking about getting a home here."

"Come." He told her with a jerk of his head. "I want to show you something." She followed him to a run down and falling apart bedroom that had been cleared of old furniture and he motioned for her to go inside. "I'd be careful on that floor it's a bit weak in spots."

"Why are you showing me a bedroom?" she asked as she walked over to the fireplace in the room and kicked at some ashes that had been left behind.

"Because when it's ready and I have gotten my family back this room with be yours. You can share it with Elijah or make him get a room of his own. The choice is yours." he told her from where he stood in the doorway with his hands behind his back.

"You want me to come live with you and your family?" she asked with raised brows and he gave her a smirk. "How do you know the rest of your family would even want me living here with all of you?"

"You've grown on me. Elijah fancies you and I have the sneaking suspicion that you have even gotten on Rebekah's good side. I'm sure Kol and Finn will be no problem." he told her as he walked into the room, being careful with his steps.

Katie carefully walked over to the window in the room and looked at the broken glass panes. "I don't understand you."

"What do you mean?" he asked as he walked to stand behind her.

She turned and looked at him. "You've had no problem killing Elijah's lovers in the past, including me. You have the worst reputation out of all of your siblings. You're ruthless, hateful and from what I can tell angry at the world. So why are you being so nice to me? And don't give me that bullshit about keeping me safe and happy for Elijah's sake."

He smirked at her and looked down at the rotten floor. "You are everything Elijah said you were and more." He looked up at her with a smirk. "You're beautiful, strong and full of fire, I admire you."

"You admire me?" Katie asked with a disbelieving look. "There is nothing admirable about me."

"I beg to differ." He told her with a tilt of his head, looking down his nose at her. "You stood up to a 1000 year old vampire because you couldn't stand knowing that he abused people you care about."

"Yet I could never stand up to my own abusers." She said as her eyes dropped to the floor. "I'm not strong and I'm not admirable. I'm a coward." She told him and walked around him, not watching where she stepped and her foot went through the floor. Rotten wood scraped up her leg and a yelp left her mouth as her left leg went completely through the floor and into the ceiling of whatever room was below. Klaus walked around her and grabbed her forearms and she grabbed his as he lifted her up, being careful not to scrape her leg even more on its way back through the floor.

She looked down at her leg as she deep scrapes healed leaving behind spots of blood. "I warned you about the floor." He told her making her realize that they were still holding onto each other.

She let go of him and backed away. "I not usually this clumsy. Is there working water in this dump?"

"Yes and it won't be a dump for long." He told her as he jerked his head for her to follow him. He led her down stairs to the kitchen and motioned to the sink. "The construction crews will return tomorrow. Do you have any requests for your room?" he asked as he leaned his hip against the old island in the kitchen.

Katie tested the structural integrity of the counter near the sink to find it sound. "Antique white furnishings and a canopy bed centered on a white plush rug." Katie answered just throwing a theme out at him as she hopped up on the counter and stretched her leg out over the sink, "Seriously though, I like living alone. Living in a house full of vampires that can hear everything each other say even behind closed doors doesn't sound fun. I like my privacy."

Klaus watched as she turned the water on and started washing the blood off of her long smooth leg that was scantly covered by her short denim shorts. "Are you afraid we will hear you making love to Elijah?" he asked and she cut her eyes over at him then looked back down at her leg in the sink as she washed the last of the blood off. "Because I can assure you it's nothing we haven't heard before."

Katie turned and dangled her legs off the side of the counter. "So is showing me my room the only reason you invited me over here?" she asked looking over at him, taking in the thin green shirt that he wore a black leather jacket over, a beaded necklace hung around his neck, tucked into the shirt.

"No." he answered and jerked his head for her to follow him so she hopped down off the bar and followed him to a room that was currently under construction. Rebekah was lying on a table in the middle of the room. "Elena turned Rebekah over to me, you were right. She was in the Salvatore's basement with a dagger in her back that Elena put there."

Katie rolled her eyes then noticed that the dagger was now in Rebekah's chest. "So why is she still daggered?" She asked with a look up at him to watch his face drop. "Elena told you Rebekah knows didn't she?"

"I'm not sure what you're referring to." He told her as he did that thing where he looked down his nose at her.

"That you killed your mother, not Mikael. You're keeping the dagger in because you know when she comes to she's not only going to be pissed at Elena, but you too." She told him and his eyelids fluttered as he nodded. "Just so you know…I'm not judging you. I killed my own grandfather and I try not to be a judgy hypocrite."

"And you wonder why I fancy you." he told her with a smirk as he walked away expecting her to follow him. Instead she just kept standing there looking at Rebekah. As she thought about how bad it sucked that Rebekah had been daggered and she didn't even know about it, her mind turned to her other friends. As she remembered what tomorrow was a tear slipped down her cheek and she wiped it away. Klaus turned back and saw her wipe her face. "Are you alright, love?" he walked back over to stand beside her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She tried to walk around him, but he touched her upper arm and she stopped and looked at him. He gave her a look that asked her to talk to him. "Tomorrow's Caroline's birthday. I've never missed one of her birthday parties. Now I'm not even invited. And it's nobody's fault but my own." She walked past him and into the entryway. "Is there anything else you want to show me or can I go home?" she asked turning back to see that he had followed her.

"You can if you wish." He told her as he took a few steps closer to her. "Or you could stay for a night cap."

Katie narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?" she asked. Instead of answering her with words he lifted his hand and slid the backs of his fingers down her cheek, testing her. Just like he anticipated her heart started racing and a smile teased the corners of his nicely shaped lips. "Klaus." Katie sighed as she pulled her head away from his hand. "I'm in love with Elijah."

He dropped his hand to rest on her shoulder. "I'm not asking you to fall in love with me sweetheart." She glanced down at his hand on her shoulder that her black and red tank top left bare then back up at him. "How long has it been since you broke up with Damon? Three, four months and your still a new vampire so it's no wonder you're practically biting everyone's heads off."

Katie busted out laughing. "So you're saying I need to get laid and you'll bite the bullet for everyone's sanity?" she asked still laughing a bit. "How long has it been since you talked a woman into your bed without the luxury of compulsion?"

"Too long apparently." He answered as he took a step back and dropped his hand from her shoulder looking disappointed.

"I'm sorry I don't mean to laugh, but you have to know that this…" she motioned between them, "would be a _really_ bad idea."

"Sometimes it can be fun to be bad." He told her as he took a step to her and placed his hand on her side.

Deciding that she could use some fun she stepped into him and put her hands on his t-shirt covered chest then sped them over so that he was pressed against the wall next to the double set of stairs that led up to the second floor. "You're right. It can be fun." She smiled and bit her lower lip when she saw lust cloud his eyes. In a flash his lips were on hers, but she quickly made her way to his neck then bit his earlobe and whispered, "Keep dreaming, big bad wolf." While he was caught off guard she sped out the door to her car, leaving him hanging.

**A/N:** I know, Katie's a tease, but she's just messing with him. I promise she will see Elijah soon.


	31. Chapter 31

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 31**

The next morning at school Katie watched as Elena and Bonnie decorated Caroline's locker with happy birthday signs, ribbons and streamers. Bonnie caught her looking and gave her a sad smile while Elena pretended not to see her. With a sigh Katie shut her locker door and went to class. As the day drug on she realized that Caroline had skipped school and she couldn't help but worry about her. But she had to keep reminding herself that she just like Elena had chosen to exclude her.

Later that night she got a text from Caroline asking her to meet them at the Fell tomb in the cemetery. She though about not going, but Caroline was reaching out to her so she grabbed her bag and headed out. Instead of taking her car she whooshed to the cemetery. "I need it more than you do, trust me." She heard Elena saying as she neared the tomb. "Caroline, what are you doing?"

"Huh? Hmm? Nothing." Carline replied.

"Okay you're a bad sober liar. You're an even worse drunk liar." Elena told her.

"I might have texted Tyler." Caroline answered.

"And me." Katie said as she walked up the steps to see Elena, Matt, Bonnie and Caroline in the tomb, a small birthday cake sat in the corner with a slice cut out of it.

"Caroline." Elena scolded her.

"It's my birthday." Caroline argued. "I wanted all of my friends here."

"Caroline I thought we talked about this." Elena told her.

"Give her a break." Bonnie spoke up with a snarky tone that Katie hadn't heard from her in a long time. "You can't control what everybody does all the time."

Everyone looked at Bonnie with raised brows. "Wow." Elena said with a nod as Katie walked over to Caroline.

"What did I miss?" Katie whispered.

"She compelled Jeremy to leave town." Bonnie answered without looking at her.

"I'm doing it to protect him." Elena told her. "I want to give him a chance at a half way normal life."

"He should be able to choose how he wants to live it. You're taking his choices away." Bonnie argued.

"Bonnie you can't tell him." Elena told her, Katie's eyes were bouncing back and forth between the two girls.

"Why? Are you gonna compel me not to?" Bonnie asked with a glare.

"You know, you guys are ruining a perfectly good funeral." Matt spoke up in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"I'm sorry." Bonnie said as she grabbed her bag. "I'm just gonna go sleep it off or something." She stood up and turned to Katie and Caroline. "Happy birthday." Her eyes met Katie's apologetically as she passed, but that was all.

With Bonnie gone everyone's eyes turned to Katie. "I want to talk to Caroline. Is that cool with you Katherine 2.0?" she asked Elena with an attitude cocked head.

"Don't compare me her." Elena told her with a cold glare.

"Then stop acting like her." Katie argued back.

"Can you guys not?" Matt asked getting their attention. "Let's just let them talk." Elena followed mat out of the tomb.

"I'm sorry about everything." Caroline told her quietly.

"I want to say that it's fine, but it's not." Katie told her.

"I know." Caroline answered.

Katie pulled the charm bracelet that three of them had given her for her last birthday out of her pocket. "It seems like Elena has been the instigator of the kick Katie to the curb movement." She started making Caroline pull a pained face. "But I haven't exactly seen you and Bonnie fighting back. I know that it's because I'm linked to and in love with Elijah and because of that I'm on team Klaus by default and therefore you can't trust me."

"You helped Klaus kill the one thing we had that could kill him. You used to be on our side. You wanted him dead just as much as we did, but then he daggered Elijah and you changed." Caroline pointed out. "You were no longer loyal to us."

"I will be the first to admit that my loyalties lie with the originals now. But that only happened _after_ you all turned you backs on me." Katie argued.

"We never meant to hurt you." Caroline told her quietly.

"But you did and I can't forgive any of you. I have been friends with you guys since first grade and you all threw that away without a second thought. So with that being said, and I'm sorry to do this on your birthday but, we're all done as friends." she held out the bracelet and dropped it into Caroline's palm.

She whooshed away and was walking up her porch steps when her phone started ringing. "Hello?"

"Katie, thank god you answered, it's Matt. Tyler bit Caroline and I don't know what to do." He said into the phone panicking.

"Get her to her mom and I'll talk to Klaus." Katie told him then hung up and dialed Klaus number.

"If you're calling about Caroline I'm already on my way to her house. Tyler beat you to the punch." He told her making her sigh in relief before she thought about something.

"Did you tell him to bite her?" she asked clearly pissed off.

"Maybe." He replied and Katie rolled her eyes. "I needed to send a message, Caroline was unfortunately collateral damage. Gotta go, love." He hung up and Katie tossed her phone on the couch with a sigh.

* * *

For the next week and a half she managed to mind her own business and not get caught up in any vampire drama, which felt like a miracle.

"Katie." Alaric called her name as she was about to walk out of his class room Thursday morning. So she turned around and walked over to his desk. "Are you doin' okay?" Katie shifted her weight on her feet, but said nothing. "I haven't seen you say a word to any of your friends all week."

"I haven't spoken to them because we aren't friends anymore." She said as she pushed the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder.

"Katie." He sighed and tilted his head as if to say he was disappointed in her.

"I know your looking out for me and I appreciate it, but I'm fine. My life is actually a lot better without all the witch, vampire, doppelganger drama. I actually have time to focus on the things I care about now." She replied.

"Yeah I noticed your grades are getting better." He sighed. "Well, except for calculus. You know you need to pass that for med school right?"

"Isn't that what compulsion is for?" She asked getting an eye roll from him.

"I'm kidding, obviously. If I was compelling my teachers my grades would be higher." She answered. "Stop worrying about me." She told him as she looked at the clock.

"Alright go to class." He told her with a jerk of his head to the door. She gave him a small smile and left.

* * *

She was sitting on the couch listening to a rerun of The Walking Dead and working on a calculus assignment when she got a familiar feeling in the pit of her stomach and her pencil stopped moving. The spiral notebook, text book and pencil were tossed onto the coffee table as she stood up and closed her eyes. Using their link to locate him she found him just on the other side of her front door and a smile spread over her face. With a whoosh she went to the door and pulled it open, her eyes landing on the smirking man. "Elijah!" she threw herself into him and pressed her lips to his. It took a split second for him to get over the shock of her reaction and start kissing her back. Not wanting to make out on the front porch he whooshed them inside and kicked the door shut.

It felt as if his hands were made of electricity as he held her thin tank top covered waist with one and cupped her cheek with the other, sliding his thumb along her cheekbone. Over the next few second the kiss slowed and broke. He pulled back and smiled at her. "Well, hello to you too."

A bright smile took over her face before her brain started working again and she asked, "How long have you been back?" While she could feel it when he was daggered, she couldn't feel it when it was taken out.

"A few hours." He told her as he looked down at her hands still on his chest even though he had dropped his from her out courtesy for Damon. "Your boyfriend is actually the one who took the dagger from my chest."

"I'm guessing you haven't gotten a rundown of what has happened in months that you were out?" she asked and he narrowed his eyes and shook his head no. "First thing you should know," she looked up at his hair that wasn't parted down the middle like the last time she saw him. Instead it was kind of spiked up and messy looking. "I like your hair better like this." She looked back into his dark chocolate brown eyes.

"And the second?" he asked with a bit of a smirk at her comment.

She slid her hands down his chest to the button of his suit jacket and unfastened it. "I broke up with Damon." She slid her hands into his jacket to rest on his sides over his blue dress shirt.

"Well that certainly explains a few things." He told her as a smile took over his face and his hands grabbed her sides again. "For example, why your bedroom at the Salvatore's has been abandoned."

"Did you try to sneak into my bedroom window?" she asked with a scandalous look.

"Yes I would have thrown stones but I did not want to shatter the glass." He informed her and she laughed. "It also explains the rather enthusiastic greeting from you."

"Well, I've missed you." she replied still smiling like a silly school girl.

"As I have missed you." he replied as he slid his hand over her cheek then leaned down and caught her top lip between his. She sighed into the kiss and slid her hands up his chest and over his arms, pushing his jacket off. Not breaking the kiss he tossed it behind him onto the arm chair. She untied his tie and tossed it behind him missing the chair but she didn't care and started working on the buttons of his dress shirt while he grabbed the straps of her tank top and pulled them down her shoulders.

His hands on her bare sides pulled a sigh from her as she finished up the buttons and pushed his shirt down his shoulders. Just like his jacket it got tossed on the arm chair. He whooshed her over to the couch and laid her back, sliding his hand from her cheek down her neck and between her breasts that he clearly admired in the black and red lace bra she was wearing. He looked into her eyes as he hooked his fingers under the elastic of her Nike shorts and pulled them off revealing the boy shorts panties that matched her bra.

She smiled at the look on his face as she sat up and stood on her knees on the couch, kissing him as she started unbuckling his belt. His lips moved to her neck, crashing her train of thought and her hands stopped working on his belt and instead gripped his hips to stabilize herself as a moan left her lips. He laid her back onto the couch and finished her work on his pants with vamp speed then lowered himself over her. She hooked her arms under his holding onto his shoulders as he pecked her on the lips then kissed his way back to her neck.

Her finger tips pressed into his shoulders as he sank into her, pulling a moan from her and a grunt from him that sent sparks through to her core. "Elijah." She arched her back when he started rocking into her. In just a few minutes they were both dangerously close to falling over the edge. She pulled away from where she had been kissing his neck and looked into his eyes. With that one look they knew they were on the same page. Not wanting to hold back any longer they both let go and tumbled into the waves of ecstasy that consumed them.

After coming down from their high Elijah flipped them around so that she was lying on top of him on the couch, covered up with the maroon knit blanket that had been on the back of the couch. Knowing that she liked to bask in the peace that followed Elijah simply played with her hair content with the feel of her in his arms once again. When he felt as if enough time had passed he asked, "What…are you watching?"

Katie looked up to see a herd of zombies pressed against the fences of the prison that the group of survivors were staying in. "You've never seen The Walking Dead?" she asked with a look at the tv and he hummed a negative answer. "It's a post apocalyptic tv show. Right now the survivors are staying in a prison because what once kept people in, keeps zombies out." She explained while watching people shove knives, crow bars and broken broom handles through the zombies heads. With a playful smile on her face she added, "Daryl Dixon is kind of my man."

"Really?" he asked with a look down at her to see the smile on her face. "And which one is he?"

"The one wearing the black vest with angel wings on the back." she answered and watched him look at the tv until he spotted Daryl. When he saw him he looked down at her with a look that said he questioned her taste in men.

"Do I need to be jealous?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

"Of a fictional character?" She laughed as she pushed herself up and pecked him on the lips. "No. You're the only man I want." Her eyes caught the spiral notebook and text book on the coffee table and she sighed as she let her head fall to rest on his chest. "and as much as I want to just _be_ with you right now… I have calculus homework that's due in the morning." She pushed herself up off of him and the couch.

"I missed your summer vacation." He said as he sat up and kept himself covered with the blanket as he grabbed his pants then stood up. "How was it?"

"I spent some of it at Duke. It was kind of a pre, pre med internship thing." she explained as she walked over to the arm chair and grabbed his dress shirt. "If I can pull off the grades and life doesn't get in the way I want go to med school." She pulled on his shirt and buttoned the three buttons in the center. "But calculus is proving to be a colossal pain in the butt."

He watched her breathe in the sent of his shirt and smile as she hugged herself. The small action spoke a thousand words and he couldn't stop the pleased smile that spread over his face at the sight. He sat down on the couch and grabbed her homework off the table. "These equations are incorrect."

"Are you serious?" she asked walking over to sit down next to him and looked at her work with a frown as she rubbed her temple with her fingers. "Do you think I'm aiming too high with this whole doctor thing?" she asked with a look up at him from the homework. "Doctors have to be good at math and it's my hardest subject."

"You can do… anything you set your mind to." He told her as he took the notebook from her, ripped the page of her equations out and wadded it into a ball. "You just need a better teacher." She smiled at him when he threw the paper ball at her.

"You're going to tutor me?" she asked with a devious smile on her face as she threw her leg over him, straddling his lap.

His eyes sparkled with lust as a smile pulled at one side of his lips and his hands slid from her hip to her sides under this shirt sending sparks through her skin. "If you would like me to."

"I would love for you too. I just don't know if I'm going to be able to concentrate on the lesson when all I can think about it making out with my tutor." She told him as she slipped her hands up his nude chest then lightly ran her pointed finger under his chin, beckoning him to her. His hand flew from her side to her neck as he caught her lips with his. Their tongues found each other pulling a moan from her and he sighed as his hand on her side pulled her closer. After a few minutes the kiss broke and they pulled back looking in each others eyes.

"If we are going to get any work done on your assignment you, my love, are going to have to put some clothes on." He told her as he moved her on his lap, letting her feel what she was doing to him.

"Am I distracting you?" she asked deviously.

"Perhaps just…" he held his fingers up in a pinching gesture, "a little." She kissed him then slid back off of his lap. She took his shirt off and handed it to him. "Keep it. I like it on you."

She smiled and tossed the shirt over her shoulder. "I'll be down in a minute." While she changed he went out to his car and grabbed a fresh shirt then looked over her text book preparing to help her. When she came back down he saw that she had put on a pair of loose fitting yoga pants and a t-shirt. He still found her amazingly attractive, but at least now they could both attempt to concentrate on the task at hand.

After an hour her homework was done and she actually understood everything. Satisfied, she stuck the papers in her text book and shut it. "You know, my teacher's probably going to think I cheated." She turned on the couch to look at him where he sat with the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up and his arm stretched out across the back of the couch.

"That, my love, is what compulsion is for." She smiled and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. "What?"

"Nothing." She told him with a shake of her head. "It's just really nice having you back." she didn't want to tell him that he had given her the okay to do something that everyone else in her life had encouraged her not to do.

When she yawned he looked at the clock on the wall he realized it was after midnight. "I believe it is time for you to head to bed." he told her and she looked at the clock as she stood up with another yawn. He stood and hooked his arm around her waist pulling her into him as he pressed his lips to hers. She sighed and placed her hands on his neck while his other hand held the back of her neck. After a few seconds he gave her a peck on the lips and let her go. "Good night, my love." He made a move to the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" she asked taking a few steps after him. "You're not staying here?"

"If I stay here tonight neither of us will get any sleep." He told her with a bit of a smirk that made her blush.

"Yeah." She drawled. "You're probably right." She sighed then yawned again. He grabbed his jacket off of the armchair and shrugged it on. She walked over to him and gave him a finale kiss. "Good night." She saw him out of the door then shut it behind him. She fell asleep in his shirt smiling like an idiot.

* * *

The next morning the smell of bacon, eggs and coffee pulled her from sleep before her alarm clock even went off. So curious, she made her way downstairs and found Elijah standing at the stove that hadn't been used in quite a while with the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up neatly. "Good morning." He greeted her without turning around.

"Good morning indeed." She replied as she grabbed a coffee cup from the cabinet and poured a cup. "Coffee?" she asked not knowing if he was a coffee drinker since it wasn't widely available when they were together.

"I've already had a cup, thank you though." He answered with a glance at her over his shoulder that lingered when he realized the only she was wearing his shirt and panties. She smiled as she added a spoonful of creamer and gave it a stir then put the spoon in the sink and walked over to lean on the cabinet beside him. "I've been meaning to ask." He started with a look up at her hair. "Why'd you change your hair?"

"After Damon and I broke up I felt…different. I wanted it to be reflected on the outside." She answered. "Do you hate it?" she asked then took a drink of her coffee.

"I actually quite like it." he told her with a smile then flipped the egg in the skillet. "Why did you and Damon end things if you don't mind my asking."

"We just…grew apart over the summer. I went off to Duke. Being away from him and everyone else here in Mystic Falls made me realize that I'm a different person when I'm not around them. I started dreaming about you again." She told him getting a look of interest from him. "As it turns out even though Jonas Martin gave me back my memories I was still subconsciously blocking a lot of the you memories." She took another drink of coffee as he put the bacon on two plates. "The dreams stopped when I came home from duke, but after I broke up with Damon it was like the flood gate opened again. I even went through a phase where I day dreamed about you a lot."

He put an egg on each plate and picked them up as he motioned for her to sit at the table. "Do you remember the song you used to sing to me?" He asked as he set the plate in front of her then sat down across from her.

"Siuil a rune." She answered then picked up her bacon and took a bite. "Wait a second." She said as she realized she didn't keep bacon and eggs in the house. "Did you go grocery shopping for me?"

"Yes. It seems the only food in your house is junk." He answered with a point at the open pantry that only contained a few bags of chips and a value size box of popcorn.

"Yeah…" she drawled and scratched the back of her neck. "I kind of don't eat regular food very often." She said then finished off a piece of bacon and started working on her egg. "You know you didn't have to do this, right?" he hummed a positive answer. "And I'm not expecting a repeat in the morning."

"You never did like it when I tried to spoil you." he said as he looked up at her.

"Oh I like it I just don't want to actually become spoiled." She corrected with a smile then took the last bite of her eggs and looked at the clock. "So what are you going to do while I'm at school?" she asked waiting for him to finish before she left the table.

"I'm actually going to meet with Damon. He left this in my jacket pocket." He pulled a note out and handed it to her.

"Dear Elijah let's get together and plot the destruction of your brother. Xoxo, Damon." She red aloud then handed him the note back and grabbed her now luke warm coffee. "So they are still trying to find a way to kill Klaus I see."

"You were not aware of this?" he asked with a confused look.

"No, I uh, I've been keeping my nose in my own business here lately considering my friends and I are no longer friends." she said as she took the last drink of her coffee. She noticed that he was also done so she grabbed her plate and his and put the dishes in the sink.

"I don't understand." He shook his head with a frown.

"It's a long story for another time. I need to start getting ready." She told him evasively then headed up stairs.

She hadn't expected him to follow her so when she turned from getting something out of her closet and saw him standing in her doorway she jumped. "You loved your friends."

"Loved being the key word in the sentence, past tense." She said as she grabbed a pair of jeans out of her closet and threw them on the bed with the red tank top and black lace long sleeved shirt. He watched her get dressed in silence, wondering what had caused the down fall of her group of friends. People she would have given her life for. She grabbed a pair of black lace ballerina flats off of the shoe rack in her closet, her bag and tried to leave the room, but Elijah didn't move.

When a smile spread over his face she realized what he was doing and she smiled back. She slid her hand over his chest and kissed him. When it broke he stepped aside. "What did Jonah call it when we did that?"

"Paying the toll troll." She answered with a smile as she walked past him and down the stairs. "Have I mentioned that I missed you?" she asked with a look over her shoulder as she got to the bottom of the stairs.

"You may have mentioned it once or twice." He told her as he watched her slip on her shoes the head for the door. "You are forgetting something." She turned and looked at him with a frown, having flashbacks of Damon stealing her phone or keys to keep her with him a little longer. But when she followed his eyes to the calculus book on the table she snapped out of it.

"Oh, right, I might need that." She headed over to the table, grabbed the book and shoved it in her bag. "Thank you."

When she walked outside she saw a brand new black Lincoln parked behind her car in the driveway. "Will you allow me to spoil you a little by driving you to school?"

Katie rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. "If you must." She smiled letting him know she was playing with him.

"Oh I must." He told her as he walked down the steps and she followed after him. "I've been waiting one hundred and seventy one years to spoil you rotten."

"Then I guess I'll just have to get used to it." she told him as he opened her door for her, she got inside and he shut the door. "So you said Damon wants to talk to you about killing your brother?" she asked curiously as he backed out of the driveway. "Are you still on board with that?"

"You saw and felt him shove a dagger in my heart." He said with a look over at her. "He will pay for what he has done."

"I really hate asking this now, but I have to. Have you heard who really killed your mother?" she asked turning a little in her seat to face him.

"Yes that is one of the few things Niklaus told me when I woke up yesterday and it is only one of the many reasons he needs to be stopped." Elijah answered.

"Okay." She told him as she turned her eyes to look out the passenger window.

"Are you still on board with that?" He copied her question back at her.

"I'm on board with what ever you want." She answered only to get an I-don't-believe-you side eye from him. "I kind of helped him kill Mikael in exchange for him un-daggering you and in doing so-"

"You bonded with him." He finished for her.

"It was more like we developed a mutual respect for each other." She replied not liking the idea of bonding with Klaus. "And he was going to un-dagger you until freaking Stefan stole you and the rest of your siblings out from under our noses. Then when Elena, who daggered Rebekah in the back by the way, turned her over to Klaus she told him that she knew he killed your mother, there for ensuring that he wouldn't un-dagger her or you anytime soon." She finished as he pulled up in front of the school.

"When was the last time you saw Niklaus?" He asked looking at her across his shoulder.

"A week and a half or so ago." She answered then looked at the clock in the car to see they still had roughly fifteen minutes to talk. "He invited me to the house he's renovating and showed me the room he said was mine if I wanted it."

"He asked you to live with him?" He asked with narrowed eyes.

"And then proceed to try to get me to sleep with him, yes." She answered. "You don't seem surprised."

"That is because this isn't the first time he has tried to seduce the woman I love." He explained while watching a student walk by then looked at her. "Did he succeed?"

"No." She answered with a shake of her head. "However because I like transparency in a relationship I will tell you that because I was bored I indulged him long enough to get him hot and bothered then left him high and dry. It was just kissing and it meant nothing." She told him hoping she wouldn't have to go into detail because the clock was ticking. "Are you mad?"

"No. You say it meant nothing and I believe you." He told her then glanced down at the clock in the car at the same time she did. "It seems we are out if time." As he spoke the five minute warning bell rang out.

They both got out of the car and he walked around to her and placed his hand on her lower back. "Thank you for breakfast and I'll see you after cheer practice?" She asked and he gave her a nod and a quick kiss on the cheek then pushed her toward the school with his hand on her lower back.

Since everyone else was already in class and she didn't want to be late she whooshed to her locker grabbed her history book and shoved her math book inside then whooshed to the door of Alaric's class. She walked inside seconds before the bell rang. "Cutting it close today aren't you?" Alaric asked as she walked over to her seat.

"My apologies Mr. Saltzman." She replied the pulled out her text book and opened it to the page written on the board. When she looked up he gave her a tilted head look. She looked at Caroline. "Do I have something on my face?"

"No you're just strangely chipper this morning." Katie just smiled and turned her eyes front.

* * *

After changing out of her athletic clothes she headed to the front of the school and easily spotted Elijah leaning against his black car in his usual suit and tie. She had to force herself not to whoosh over to him and when she got close to him he placed his hand on her side and kissed her head. "How was your day?" She asked with a smile up at him.

"How do you feel about accompanying me to a dinner meeting?" He asked as he dropped his hand from her side.

"Depends, who is the meeting with?" She prompted as she walked around the car and climbed into the passenger seat.

"Niklaus, Damon and Stefan." He answered as he started the car.

"You want me to have dinner with you, your brother who hit on me, my ex and my ex friend who stole you from me?" She asked rhetorically as she watched him walk around to the driver's side of the car. "Sounds awkward, but I'd love to." She opened the passenger door and got in. "But for curiosity's sake, why do you want me to go?"

"Because I have missed you." He said as he slid his hand over hers that rested palm down on the center console. A smile took over her face as she looked down at their hands as he pulled out of the school parking lot.

She had forgotten the simplistic intimacy of just holding hands. "So what's this meeting about? If I'm going to have dinner with them I should probably catch up on my gossip."

On the drive home he explained to her that Damon and Stefan had returned the coffins to Klaus that contained him, Kol, and Finn, but kept a coffin that was spelled shut. Not even Elijah knew who was in it, but all signs were pointing to someone or something that could kill Klaus. Elijah had no plans of helping them open the coffin. Instead his plan was to un-dagger his siblings and the four of them get the coffin and use it against Klaus. Stefan and Klaus however believed the meeting tonight was to work out a peace treaty between the two of them.

"So I'm going to meet your other brothers tonight?" She asked as they got out of the car and headed to her house.

"If all goes as planned, yes." He answered as he watched her walked into her living room and toss her bag on the couch. "Damon mentioned that you have already met Rebekah and made friends with her?" he asked remembering that he thought the two of them wouldn't get along.

"Yep. I didn't think we would get along because she's…well, Rebekah, but we didn't hate each other." She answered as she went to the kitchen and grabbed a blood bag out of the refrigerator. "So what time is dinner?" she asked with a look at the clock in the kitchen as she popped the stopper out of the tube of the bag and started drinking it.

"Seven thirty." He answered as he pulled out one of the dining chairs and sat down at the table. She saw his eyes narrow at the bag in her hand. "Do you ever really feed?" he asked looking at her lips wrapped around the tube.

"That's kind of frowned upon around here. One of the stipulations of getting my daylight ring was not feeding on people. If Bonnie found out that I did she'd de-spell it. So…it's been strictly blood bags. Although I did get pissed the first day of school and fed on a class mate at the bonfire and it's still working so I guess Damon actually kept something to himself for once." She said with a look at her daylight ring on her right hand.

"Well that's no fun." He replied as he tapped the small square wooden dining table with his middle finger.

"Eh, it makes it all the more fun when I do feed." She answered as she walked over to him and held the blood bag out to him.

He shook his head no. "You don't have to answer, but did you and Damon ever blood share?" he asked looking at his hand tapping the table.

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head with a shrug. "I don't know what you mean." she answered with a frown then finished off the blood bag and tossed it in the trash.

"Did you feed on each other?" he rephrased.

"No. I wasn't aware that was a thing." she said as she walked over and leaned her hip against the table. "Why wouldn't I want to tell you if we did or not?"

"Blood sharing is intensely intimate." He answered with lust in his brown eyes.

"We have three hours until dinner." She pointed out not looking away from his eyes.

"I would prefer to wait until we have all night." He told her as he hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her to straddle him in the dining chair. "Until then…" he grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her lips to his. They made out like a couple of love stuck teens until it was time for her to get dressed for dinner.

* * *

"Katie, I should've known you'd be joining us tonight." Klaus said when she walked into the dining room where four pretty women stood close to the walls with their hands behind their backs, all wearing gold and black matching outfits.

She looked down at her jeans, cream colored flowy tank top and denim jacket, feeling a little underdressed then looked up at Klaus. "Is my presence going to be a problem?" she asked as she shrugged off her jacket as Elijah took off his then took her jacket from her and walked off to put them away.

"Not at all, you know I enjoy your company." He told her with a closed lipped smile then turned his eyes to Elijah who placed his hand on the small of her back.

A knock at the door pulled them all from the tense moment and Elijah answered it. Damon and Stefan walked into the room and Katie felt herself tense at the sight of Stefan. After an unpleasant exchange between Stefan and Klaus they all sat down at the rectangle table big enough to sit six, but tonight was only seating five.

They were all eating in silence until Klaus noticed Stefan wasn't eating. "Have you lost your appetite?" he asked.

"Eat. I thought we agreed that we would leave the grumpy Stefan at home." Damon told him. Stefan gave him a sarcastic closed lipped smile and picked up his fork and knife.

"Isn't this nice? The five of us dining together. Such a treat." Klaus said with a look around the table then settled his eyes on Damon. "Is this what you had in mind when you pulled the dagger out of my brother?"

"Well I knew how he felt about you. So I figured the more…" he took a bite off his fork, "the merrier." He gave Elijah a wink.

"Well Elijah and I have had our share of quarrels over the centuries, but we always make it though." Klaus replied.

"Kinda like you and Rebekah, right?" Stefan asked getting a look from Klaus. "Where is she, by the way? Last I checked she was still daggered because you were afraid to face her." Stefan said with a point at Klaus with the hand he held his glass in, then took a drink.

"If you're referring to the fact that Rebekah knows I killed our mother I already came clean to Elijah." Klaus told him and he and Elijah looked at each other.

"Hey, Stef, remember when you killed dad. You might want to dial down the judgment till dessert." Damon told him then took a drink of the red wine in his glass.

"We're here to make a deal, Damon. That doesn't men we need to kiss his ass for seven courses." Stefan told his brother as he folded his hands together and gave him another smart ass smile. Katie took in a deep breath and let it out, finding it difficult to keep her mouth shut. "Is there something you'd like to say to me?" Stefan asked finally looking at her. She looked up at Elijah who slid his hand over her leg under the table. "Do you need his permission to speak?"

"No, I don't." she answered as she sat up straighter. "And there is something I would like to say to you, but this is not the appropriate place or time for foul language and violent actions." She told him with a sarcastically polite smile.

Klaus laughed with his finger placed over his lips while Damon looked at Katie then Stefan. "Yeah, in case you didn't know, you've severally pissed her off." Damon whispered to his brother. "Katie Cat's found a new family."

"Yeah and maybe this one won't stab me in the back." Katie popped off.

"Are you forgetting that he was willing to let you die for Jenna?" he asked with wide eyes. "That your bloodline died with you and there's a chance that you wouldn't have come back?"

Katie had opened her mouth to argue but Elijah beat her to it. "As long as I am on this earth she will find a way back to me bloodline or no bloodline. I was willing to wait another one hundred some odd years for her if it meant she was free of you." he said making Katie look up at him with questioning eyes. "I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth." He told her them looked back at Damon. "And I believe that she is competent enough to make her own decisions."

They ate in silence for a few more awkward and tense moments during which Katie moved her hand under the table and wrote I love you on his leg with her finger. He looked down at her and she could see the message returned in his eyes. After a few more minutes Elijah asked, "Stefan, where is the lovely Elena tonight?" in an attempt to start the conversation back up.

"I don't know, ask Damon." Stefan answered and Klaus started laughing again.

Damon noticed Katie place her hand back on the table with a hurt look in her eyes that he was sure no one else had caught as Elijah looked at the laughing Klaus with questioning eyes. "I'm sorry, you've missed so much." He told him then motioned to the brothers. "Trouble in paradise."

"One more word about Elena, and uh, this dinner is over." Stefan said with a look at Elijah and Klaus.

"You know what, it's probably best just to keep Elena in the do not discuss pile." Damon told them then looked at Elijah. "And you might not want to call her the _lovely_ Elena." He said with a motion to Katie.

"You're probably right." Klaus said while Elijah looked at Katie who dropped her eyes to her plate. "It's just the allure of the Petrova doppelganger is still so strong." Katie felt herself tensing at the talk of doppelgangers. "What do you say brother? Should we tell them about Tatia?"

"Why should we discuss matters long since resolved?" Elijah asked with a laugh as he took his cloth napkin out of his lap and put it on the table and leaned back in his chair.

"Well given their shared affection for both Elena and Katerina I think our guests might be curious to learn about the originator of the Petrova line." Klaus' words caused Katie to put down her silver wear and hide her fists under the table.

Elijah noticed her action and turned to look at her. She forced herself to give him a smile. "Well, we're not going anywhere, Elijah. Please, do tell." Damon said as he grabbed his glass of wine then took a drink noticing the what-the-hell-are-you-doing-look he got from Katie.

Elijah slid his hand over Katie's fist and she flipped her hand around to hold it. "When my family first moved here there was a girl named Tatia. She was…" he looked down at Katie realizing he needed to choose his words wisely "beautiful. Every boy of age desired to be her suitor. Even though she'd had a child by another man and none loved her more than Niklaus."

"Oh, I'd say there was one who loved her at least as much." Klaus said then let his eyes fall on Elijah then Katie who was doing a good job of keeping how much the topic was affecting her from her face. She wasn't hearing anything she didn't already know, but hearing it from Elijah himself was almost too much to handle.

"Wait a minute, so you both loved the same girl?" Stefan asked as he sat up and placed his elbows on the table, folding his hands together.

"Our mother was a very powerful witch. She sought to end out feud over Tatia and so she took her." Elijah said as he rubbed Katie's hand with his thumb. "Klaus and I would later learn that it was Tatia's blood that we consumed in the wine on the night our mother performed the spell which turned us into vampires." Elijah grabbed his glass of wine and took a drink and set it back down. "Tatia wouldn't choose between the two of us. So for a time, Niklaus and I…grew estranged. Harsh words were traded. We even came to blows. Didn't we brother?"

"But in the end we recognized the sacred bond of family." Klaus added.

"Family above all." Elijah said as he lifted his glass to Klaus and they clinked them together in a toast as Klaus repeated his words.

"If you all will excuse me…" Katie took the napkin from her lap, stood up and placed it in her chair. "I need some fresh air."

She walked out and to the front porch where she leaned against a support post. She hated that the fact that Elijah was with a doppelganger bothered her so much. She knew that Elijah loved her and that he and Tatia happened before she ever even existed, but she couldn't help it. "You okay?" Damon asked making her jump.

"I'm fine." She said with a sigh.

"I can still tell when you're lying." He told her and she just shrugged. "Talk to me Katie Cat."

"Don't do that." She told him flatly. "Don't act like you still care…Like you won't run back to Elena and tell her everything I say."

She tried to walk past him back into the house, but he grabbed her wrist. "Katie."

In a flash she grabbed him by his throat and pinned him to the post she had been leaning against. "I said…don't."

"Katie." Elijah's voice made her look to the front door to see his eyes bouncing back and forth between Damon and Katie. "It will soon be time."

Katie let go of Damon's neck and walked over to Elijah and back into the dining room to see that Klaus had fed on and killed one of the women. Katie listened to them talk about Elena and her safety and Klaus needing her to have kids so that the Petrova line will continue blah blah blah. Stefan shook Klaus' hand and told him no deal and Klaus broke his wrist and leg then held his hand into the fire that was in the fireplace. Damon made a move to stop him but Elijah pinned him to the wall by his neck. "Katie do something!" Damon yelled at her.

Katie just looked at him. "Hmm." She hummed in thought. "Na, I'm perfectly content watching him suffer." Damon looked hurt, but she didn't care.

"Bring me my coffin before I burn him alive." Klaus said still holding Stefan's hand in the fire.

"I'll get it." Damon said as Elijah let go of him.

"Go with him brother, keep him honest." Klaus told him. "When you return, I will make good on my promise to you and I will hand over our family."

Elijah walked over to Katie and kissed her temple. "Stay here. I'll be back." she watched him walk away.

Only a few minutes later Elijah and Damon walked back into the room along with one of the women who was holding a tray covered with a dinner napkin. "Elijah. Why haven't you left?"

"Well, where are your manners brother? You forgot dessert." Elijah told him then pulled the napkin off to reveal two daggers.

"What have you done?" Klaus asked.

"What have you done?" Elijah echoed back. "See I've learned not to trust your vulgar promises, Klaus. We're doing this on my terms now."

A very handsome guy who looked to be about Katie's age walked into the room and over to Klaus. "Kol." Klaus greeted with big eyes as he held his hands up.

"Long time, brother." Kol greeted back.

Then an older guy whooshed into the room, grabbing a dagger on his way in. "Finn, don't." Klaus said in fear right before Finn stabbed Klaus in the hand with the dagger. When Finn pulled the dagger out Klaus tried to whoosh out of the room only to be stopped by Rebekah. "Rebekah."

She stabbed him in the stomach with her dagger. "That is for our mother." She shoved Klaus back and he stumbled into Kol who grabbed him by his arms from behind.

"You're free to go." Elijah said to Damon and Stefan. "This is family business." Katie watched Damon and Stefan leave then walked over to Elijah. "You can stay if you want, but you don't have to."

She looked between Klaus and Elijah settling her gaze on Elijah. "I'm gonna go." She answered. "Should I wait up for you?"

"No. I will call on you in the morning." He placed his hand on her arm and kissed her head. "Good night."

"Good night." She told him then looked at the other four people in the room and gave them a small smile. As she turned her back on them and walked by Klaus the mouthed the words I'm sorry. He just turned his eyes to his family as she walked out.

**A/N:** So…what do you think? Also I've been meaning to mention that I have a tumblr where I've posted a couple of stories that have Katie in them but they are kind of a "what if". For example there is a one shot of Katie and Klaus smut set before Elijah is undaggered. There's not much on there yet but I'm working on it. If you're interested it's: thebrotherssalvatore321


	32. Chapter 32

A/N: To see Katie's ball gown google image search, _rose gold lace ball gown prom dress_ and it will be the first picture (I don't count the row of dresses with prices under them). To see her hairdo, google image search, _Pinterest 23 Gorgeous Knotted Blonde Updos for Women 2018 Granny hair_ and it will be the first picture.

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 32**

The next morning Elijah found her sleeping in her bed, wearing his blue dress shirt. The sleeves covered her hands that were tucked close to her face. He sat down on the bed causing the mattress to dip. The movement made her to stir, bringing her shirt covered hands closer to her nose. When he laid his hand on her shoulder and rubbed, her eyes fluttered open and a sleepy smile spread over her lips when she saw his face. "Good morning." Her voice was a little gravely with sleep.

"Good morning." He greeted.

"How did it go last night?" she asked as she sat up and scooted back to lean on the headboard.

"Bonnie and her mother opened the coffin." He informed her.

"What was inside?" she asked wondering what kind of Klaus killing weapon would be in a coffin.

"My mother." He answered causing her jaw to drop. "She's alive and has forgiven Niklaus. She wants us to be a family again." Katie blinked at him in shock. "She wants to meet you."

"Your _mother_ wants to meet me?" she asked feeling overwhelmed and intimidated. He smiled at how freaked she was.

"Tonight at the ball." He told her as picked up a dress box off the floor, took an envelope off the top of it and handed it to her.

Her name was written on the front of the envelope in pretty cursive and the envelope was stamped closed with an M in red wax. She broke the seal and took out the invitation. "Please join the Mikaelson family this evening at seven o'clock for dancing, cocktails and celebration." She read aloud then looked down at the box that sat between them.

"Open it." he told her.

She took the lid off the box revealing sparkling rose gold lace over champagne silk. "Wow." She sighed then whooshed off the bed and pulled it from the box to see that it had elegant off the shoulder short sleeves and was floor length. Under the dress laid a pair of rose gold satin gloves and matching closed toes heels.

"I know I'm spoiling you, but-" she laid the dress on the bed and stepped in front of him where he still sat on her bed and cut him off with a quick kiss.

"I don't consider a dress for a last minute ball spoiling me." She told him then looked down at the dress on the bed while his hands found her hips. "I love it and I can't wait to wear it."

"Would you like to get ready here or with my family and me?" he asked looking up at her.

"Where would you like me to get ready?" she asked as she rested her hands on his shoulders.

"With my family." He told her with a small smile. When it faded Katie could tell there was something on his mind.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Something has been bothering me since last night's dinner." He told her and she sat down next to him and pulled her leg up on the bed facing him. "When Niklaus brought up Tatia you tensed before I even got a word out."

"I…asked Rebekah about your past relationships. You told me about your mother using Tatia's blood in the ritual that turned you into vampires. You didn't tell me you were romantically involved with her."

"I didn't believe it mattered." He told her with narrowed eyes, trying to figure out why his involvement with Tatia seemed to hurt her when it happened long before he and Hannah ever met.

"Yeah, well, it does." She answered not looking at him.

He cupped her face in his hands and she finally looked at him. "Explain." His voice was soft as his eyes searched hers.

She brought her hands up in front of her face and gently brushed his hands off of her. "I never told him or anyone really, but the whole time Damon and I were together I had this…fear, in the back of my mind that because he loved Katherine first he would somehow find his way back to her or end up falling for the new and improved version." She explained and dropped her eyes to her hands. "And I was right." She shrugged. "I can't compete with the_ doppelganger allure_ that you seem to have a thing for considering you have been romantic with two doppelgangers one of which is still alive."

"You think I would leave you for Katherine or Elena?" he asked with a frown.

She bit her bottom lip and shrugged. "It's just…It feels like no matter what I do Elena ends up with what I want most."

"I will never… leave you." he told her, but she didn't look up. "Look at me, My Love." Katie lifted her eyes to meet his. "I promise you. I will _never_ hurt you. I love you."

"I love you too." She whispered as a tear slipped down her cheek and he wiped it away with his thumb as he placed his hand on the side of her neck and pulled her into him for a kiss that both of them poured their every feeling into before their small make out session slowed and he pulled back to give her a smile.

"I was also wondering…" he stood up and held his hand out to her and she took it and stood up, "What were you and Damon fighting about?" he asked as he drank in the sight of her in nothing but his dress shirt and a pair of white panties, making him fall deeper in love with her.

"He keeps acting like he still gives a crap about me when I know it's not true." She answered with a shrug then went to her closet and grabbed a ¾ sleeved plain black shirt and a pair of light wash jeans then set them on her bed.

As he watched her start unbuttoning the shirt she was wearing he decided to change the subject. "What do you say to lunch at the grill then I properly introduce you to my siblings?"

"Sounds like nerve wrecking fun." She told him with a smile as she shrugged off his shirt and tossed it onto the bed. "But, only if you promise to give me another shirt, that one is starting to smell more like me and less like you."

"I thought it looked like you smelled it in your sleep." He told her with a smile.

"Your scent makes me feel safe." she told him with a shy shrug.

"How about you stay the night with me and you won't need a shirt." He asked with a sparkle in his dark eyes.

"You're staying with your family at Klaus' house?" she asked as she grabbed a zebra print bra out of her dresser. "Where all of your siblings and their vampire hearing are also staying as well as your very old, possibly old school, mother?" she asked.

"Are you suggesting-?" he asked a little amused by her and she interrupted him.

"That your mother probably won't like me especially if I'm openly sleeping with her son?" Katie asked with raised brows as she pulled her shirt over her head. "Yes."

"I assure you fornication is not high on my mothers list of sins she would prefer her children abstain from." He told her with a small laugh.

"I will think about it." she told him with a smile. "So who all is going to be at the ball tonight?"

"All of the founders and their dates along with whoever my siblings decide to bring." He answered.

"So practically the whole town." Katie summed up as she pulled on her jeans then grabbed her old ratty converse off of her shoe rack.

"My mother also invited Elena." He told her.

"Well, her blood is a very powerful spell ingredient. It makes sense that your mother would want to meet her." Katie walked over to the stool at the end of her bed and sat down to put on her shoes.

"How long have you had those?" he asked with a look at the black and white, well worn converse that she slipped on her feet.

"So long I don't remember." She answered with a smile. "Why?"

"They are literally two steps from falling apart." He told her and she started laughing.

"I like these shoes." She argued.

"They smell." He argued back with a bit of a smirk.

She grabbed her foot, brought it to her nose and gave it a sniff. The sour sent of sweat and dirt invaded her nose. "Holy-." She dropped her foot and kicked the shoes off sending them flying across the room. "How have I not noticed that before and why didn't anyone tell me?"

Elijah started laughing. "You may think you have changed, but you are still the woman I fell in love with."

She smiled up at him remembering the house slippers she'd had in Ireland that she wore until Elijah bargained a new pair out of Fiona and convinced her to throw the old ones away. They too, had developed a smell that she had been nose blind too. He walked over to her closet and grabbed a new pair of black and white checkered slip on Vans and handed them to her.

* * *

"So why are you so convinced that my mother will not like you?" Elijah asked as the waitress set a paper bowl of cheese fries down in front of her and refilled Elijah's glass of tea.

"Because I have a history of pissing off mothers." Katie answered and Elijah just looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Ronan's mother hated me. She thought he could do better. Then when he moved us away from not only my parents but his it really made her mad."

"That is just one mother." He pointed out.

"Carol Lockwood, found out Tyler and I were together by walking in on us sleeping together." she pointed out making him raise his brows.

"Okay, I think you've made your point." He told her with a nod.

"Hey, you asked." She told him with a smile. "Besides sleeping together was probably the wrong description of what she saw."

"You do not have to go into detail." He told her with a serious look on his face. "It's bad enough my curiosity led me to see you with Damon."

"I don't think I've ever seen you jealous before." She said with a smile as she leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. "Tyler's a good guy and what his mother walked in on was purely innocent. He knew about the kind of man my grandfather was and that I didn't want to go home so he gave me a place to stay."

"That's the second time I've heard you mention your grandfather, yet I have never seen him." Elijah pointed out. "Where is he?"

Katie scratched at the back of her neck uncomfortably and looked around seeing that they weren't too close to anyone to be overheard. "Rumor is he had a midlife crisis, bought a motorcycle, quit his job and decided to see the world."

"And the truth?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

"He's at the bottom of Wickery Lake where I dumped him after I killed him." She answered reluctantly. "After I turned, obviously."

"Did he deserve it?" he asked curiously.

"Absolutely." Damon answered as he walked past them on his way to the bar. "The guy was an abusive, alcoholic asshole."

"What he said." Katie said with a point at Damon then looked at her fries that had gotten cold. "I'm done whenever you are."

* * *

They swung by her house and picked up her dress and accessories then went to Klaus'. "Don't be nervous." Elijah told her as they got out of the car.

"Easier said then done." She said then took a deep breath and let it out as Elijah opened the front door. They found everyone in the parlor. Rebekah was getting her nails painted while the men were getting fitted for suits.

"Rebekah, tell me how handsome I am." Kol who was standing in front of a mirror said while looking at himself.

"Oh, Kol, you know I can't be compelled." Rebekah said while looking at her nails.

In the process of giving Rebekah a glare his eyes caught Katie standing beside Elijah and he walked over to her. "What about you, sweetheart, what do you think?" he asked looking her in the eyes. She would be lying if she said he wasn't handsome, but his attitude completely ruined it.

A closed lipped smile pulled at her lips as she looked up at Elijah then back at Kol. "I'm afraid if I give you a compliment you might become so full of yourself you explode." She replied getting a glare from Kol as Elijah's hand pulled her closer to his side.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you." Rebekah said as she dropped her hand and stood up. "Go away Kol she's not interested." She told him as she shoved him back to the full length mirror. "I was hoping you'd be getting ready with us. I've haired us a hair dresser and manicurist." She said with a motion to the woman that had been painting her nails.

"I was planning on doing it myself, but that sounds much better." Katie replied not seeing the small smile Elijah gave her and Rebekah.

He walked her around to Finn who was having his pants tailored. "Hello, Katie." He told her and she was taken a little off guard at how deep his voice was compared to the rest of Elijah's siblings. He grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it formally, reminding her just how long he had been daggered.

"Hi." She replied not knowing what else to say to him. The manicurist walked over to Katie with a tray of different nail polishes in different shades of pink ranging from sheer to cream to metallic. Katie picked a metallic rose gold to match her dress and the woman motioned for her to sit on the couch so she sat down and the woman started working on her nails.

Elijah placed his hand on her shoulder to get her attention and when she looked up at him he pecked her on the lips. Right when they pulled apart Klaus stormed into the room, "You went after Elena?" he asked Rebekah who had taken a seat on the other end of the couch. "What is wrong with you?"

"Here we go." She told him with a snippy smile knowing he was going to lay into her.

"Do you want another dagger in your heart?" he asked.

"Again with the dagger threats. Don't you have any other tricks?" Kol asked from the other side of the room.

"Oh go back to staring at yourself." Klaus told him then turned back to Rebekah.

"And who are you, my father?" Kol asked.

"No, Kol, but you are in my house." Klaus told him and Katie looked across her shoulder at Elijah who had taken off his jacket and was looking at a pair of expensive dress shoes and he gave her a smirk then turned his eyes back to the shoes and she looked back at the guys.

"Then perhaps we should go outside." Kol challenged as the two men moved to stare each other down.

Katie heard the clanking of heels on hardwood and looked in the direction it was coming from to see who she assumed was Ester walk up. "Enough." she didn't yell, but it felt as if she did. "Niklaus, come." Klaus glared at Kol as he walked past him and followed their mother.

* * *

Katie was sitting at the antique white vanity in the now refurbished bedroom Klaus had told her was hers, doing her make up when he walked in and sat down in the white and cream colored arm chair in the corner to her left. "Do you like your room?" he asked as he watched her apply a thin line of black liner to her eyelids.

"You do realize that I didn't really think you would do it when I gave you the suggestion of antique white, right?" she asked as she put the cap back on the liquid eye liner and set it on the vanity.

"That doesn't answer my question." He pointed out with a smirk.

She turned and took in the room. A grand antique white, Victorian style canopy bed sat against the wall across from the fireplace that now matched the style of the room. A cream and gold floral comforter and matching throw pillows covered the bed while matching bedside tables sat on each side of it. A chest of drawers that matched the tables and bed sat on the wall to the right of it and the vanity that she sat at was against the wall to the left of it. A matching wardrobe sat in the corner between the chest of drawers and the bed. A cream colored plush rug sat at the foot of the bed. It looked like someone plucked the room out of a fairy tale.

A smile spread over his face when he saw her trying to hold back hers. "You like it."

She laughed and turned back to the mirror on the vanity and grabbed a tube of mascara. "If you and Elijah don't cut it out I'm going to be the most spoiled girl within a hundred miles of Mystic Falls." She told him as he watched her sweep the mascara wand over her already longer than normal lashes.

"Is that a bad thing?" he asked and she cut her eyes over at him.

"So, Rebekah has asked Matt to the ball, not a bad paring in my opinion. She's sassy he's sweet it works. Plus I love the fact that it will not sit well with my ex friends." she said to change the subject then put the mascara wand back in the tube and set it on the vanity. "Who are you bringing?"

"I've invited Caroline." He told her getting a slightly shocked look from her. "You are not the only girl in Mystic Falls that has caught my attention."

"I didn't assume I was. Caroline's bossiness might just be the kick in the butt you need." She told him as she pointed at him with a tube of liquid lipstick. He laughed at her. "I'll just be surprised if she shows up considering being associated with you is why they kicked me out of their little group in the first place. If she does it just goes to show how hypocritical they can be."

He watched her apply her lipstick, putting off getting dressed for the ball the he didn't want to attend to begin with. When she was done with her makeup she walked over to the wardrobe and grabbed her dress that was hanging on the open door. She laid it on the bed then looked at Klaus. "Can I help you?" he asked playing dumb.

"Get out so I can get dressed." She told him with a sweeping motion of her hand at the door. "Rebekah's keeping Elijah away from me until I'm ready like it's our freaking wedding day or something."

"Alright if I have to." He complained as he pushed himself up from the chair and started for the door, but when he passed her he purposely started walking really slow.

"Oh my god you're so childish sometimes." She complained, eager to get dressed so that she could be with Elijah. She put her hands on his back, pushing him and he leaned back into her making it even harder to push him, but she kept at it until he was out the door making him laugh. When he was fully out of the bedroom she shut the door behind him.

* * *

She stood looking at herself in the mirror on the inside of one of the wardrobe doors. Her hair was pinned back in a simple but elegant style that left a few wisps of her natural waves to hang around her face. Brown eye shadow with a pop of rose gold on the center of her eye lid and a line of black eyeliner and mascara made her eyes pop. Nude matt lipstick let her eyes be the focal point of her face. The off the shoulder dress pushed her ample cleavage up noticeably, but it was slightly hidden by the sheer bit of fabric that added a bit of modesty to the slightly plunging neckline.

She had turned from the mirror and was pulling on her gloves when Elijah walked in, his eyes admiring her. "You are…" he paused wrecking his brain for the right word to describe her, "an exquisite beauty."

She blushed and smiled as she finished putting on her gloves then walked over to him, her heels tapping on the hard wood floor as she did. "You don't look so bad yourself, handsome." She told him as she slid her hands up his tux jacket, taking in his black bow tie before her eyes found his.

"Don't get agitated." He stepped back as she gave him a confused look. He pulled a long rectangle, teal blue box out of his pocket.

"You're spoiling me again." She said then bit her lips closed to keep back her smile.

"It's the last time for tonight I promise." he asked with a glint in his brown eyes.

"I'm not complaining." She answered with a shake of her head then let her smile shine making him smile as he took the lid off the box revealing a necklace. A silver horizontal infinity sign with diamond accents and a rose gold heart in the center of it was attached to a silver chain at each end of the infinity sign. "It's beautiful." She told him in awe then look up at him. "Will you?" she asked with a motion to the necklace.

"Of course." He answered and took the necklace out of the box as she turned her back on him. He put the necklace around her neck and fastened the clasp then rested his hands on her shoulders. She placed her finger tips on the necklace as she turned toward him. "Come with me." He told her as he held his arm out to her and she slid her gloved one through it and he walked her to a set of closed double doors. "My mother would like to speak to you alone." She looked up at him with panic on her face. He smiled at her. "Just be yourself. She's not as intimidating as she seems."

"You're her son. You would say that." She said with an eyes roll. "I feel like I'm about to jump into a shark tank with a bleeding leg."

"You will be fine, My Love." He told her and pecked her on the lips then knocked on the door.

Finn answered and stepped aside for them to come in. "Hello, Katie." Ester greeted her.

"Hello, Mrs. Mikaelson." Katie responded as respectfully as she could.

Ester looked at both her son's. "Leave us please." the two men gave her a silent nod and left, shutting the door behind them. "So you are the woman who linked herself to my son." It was more of an observation than a question.

But Katie still felt the need to answer. "Yes, ma'am."

"And you're aware that I can easily unlink you if I see fit?" she asked with serious eyes as she walked closer to Katie who stood where Elijah had left her with her hands clasped politely in front of her.

"Fiona wasn't the most powerful of witches. So I'm sure you can, although I'm not sure why you would want to." Katie replied curiously.

"Because I fear you are using my son for his immortality." She answered without a beat.

"That's not why I asked Fiona to link me to him." Katie argued with a frown.

"Isn't it though? You were human yet you wished to live forever." She challenged, and it was pissing Katie off.

She took a deep breath and held it for a second and let it out through her nose. "I wanted to live _with him_ for forever." She countered.

"Yet when he found you, you stayed with Damon." Ester pointed out.

"Okay." Katie unclasped her hands and started talking with them. "Since you seem to somehow know everything, I'm sure you know that there have been a lot of bumps in the road since Elijah and I found each other again. But I am with him now and no one, not even you will tear me from his side. So if you see fit to remove the link, go for it. It won't change anything. I will still love Elijah with every cell in my body." She finished then folded her hands back in front of her mentally preparing for whatever backlash her rant would get from Ester.

Instead a lashing out at her she simply walked over to the double doors and opened them then motioned for her to leave the room. "Enjoy the rest of your night." She gave Katie a polite smile that somehow made her even more scared than if she would have lashed out at her.

"You too…I guess." Katie replied mentally face palming as she walked out of the room and Ester closed the doors behind her.

She was on her way back to her room when Elijah met up with her in the hallway. "How did it go?"

Katie sighed and shrugged. "I told you I suck with parents."

"What happened?" he asked as he rubbed her shoulder comfortingly.

"Metaphorically speaking, she poked at me with a sharp stick and I bit back." she replied feeling like she let him down.

"I will speak to her." he told her and made a move to walk past, but she touched his shoulder stopping him.

"I don't want her thinking I complained to you about her." She said and he smirked. "I'm no whiny baby."

"Then I will not talk to her about your meeting." he told her with amusement in his eyes. "I will meet you downstairs." He pecked her on the lips then headed to the room his mother was in.

As she walked down one side of the stairs that led down to the entryway, her gloved hand sliding over the wooden hand rail, her eyes quickly found Damon and Carol Lockwood talking down below. Carol's eyes landed on Katie and she asked Damon, "Is that Katie Finnegan?"

Damon turned and looked at her, his eyes glazing over a bit like they always had when he saw her all dolled up. "Uh huh."

When she got to the bottom of the stairs she walked over to them. "Careful Damon, you'll catch flies with your mouth hanging open like that." She told him then turned to Carol with a smile.

"Katie, I didn't see you come in." Carol observed curiously.

"I've been here for a few hours." She told them with a point upstairs.

"I didn't realize you were close to the Mikaelson's." Carol told her and Katie cut her eyes over at Damon.

"Rebekah and Katie became friends pretty fast." Damon answered for her.

Katie noticed Carol look at the stairs and followed her gazed to Elijah who smiled down at Katie. Carol smiled and waved at him. "He is _very_ handsome."

Katie noticed Damon look back and forth between the two women. "Yes…he…is." Katie replied sounding as if she should be fanning herself as she watched Elijah walk over to them.

"Good evening, Mayor Lockwood." Elijah held his hand out to Carol who took it and he kissed the back of it.

"Hello, Elijah." Carol replied with a flirty smile. Elijah let go of her hand and she placed it back on the champagne glass in her other hand. "Save me a dance later?"

Elijah looked down at Katie with a fond smile as he slid his arm around her waist and she smiled up at him lovingly then looked back at Carol. "I do not know if my date would be comfortable with that."

Katie didn't miss the shocked look on Carol's face that faded into disappointment before she regained her composure. "So the two of you are…?" Carol left the question open ended.

"Together." Elijah finished.

Carol's eyes turned cold as she looked at Katie. "My son…Damon now Elijah." While her voice was pleasant her demeanor was anything but. "No matter how many high status circles you weasel your way into," she walked over to stand shoulder to shoulder with her as she looked at Katie with demeaning eyes, "you will never be anything more than the trash you spawned from."

She watched Carol walk away with a smug smile making Katie's gloved hands ball into fists and the veins under her eyes to pop to the surface. Damon made an uh-oh face and excused himself leaving Elijah to calm Katie before someone saw her slightly vamped out face. "Calm yourself." Elijah told her quietly. "She is not worth causing a scene."

Katie took a deep breath and pushed back urge to kill Carol. "I hate this town."

Elijah snagged two glasses of champagne off of a tray as a server walked by and handed one to her. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." He quoted as she took it from him and she gave him a small smile. "Who said it?"

"Eleanor Roosevelt." She answered and placed her gloved hand on his cheek. "Thank you."

"You are very welcome." He told her as he took a drink of his champagne then motioned to the stairs with it. "Excuse me for a moment. I have to give the welcoming address." He joined his family, including his mother that had gathered on the stairs. "If everyone could gather, please." Elijah spoke to the guests. "Welcome. Thank you for joining us. You know, wherever our mother brings our family together like this, it's tradition for us to commence the evening with a dance. Tonight's pick is a centuries-old waltz. So if all of you could find yourselves a partner, please join us in the ballroom."

Elijah walked down the stairs and held his arm out to Katie and she looped her arm through it. After everyone who had a partner was ready they joined hands in an awkward manner and started dancing to Ed Sheeran's Give Me Love. "Your dancing has improved."

"I've had a little Miss Mystic training." Katie replied. "Along with what I remember you teaching me." She answered.

"Did you win?" Elijah asked curiously.

"Nope, that honor went to Caroline along with the scholarship which was the only reason I ran." She replied. "Can you believe there was a time when I didn't own a single dress and the thought of wearing heels made me cringe?"

"Judging by those awful shoes you attempted to wear today, yes." He told her with a smile that let her know she was picking with her before they did a twirl and switched partners. Katie ended up with Klaus.

He placed his hand on her side and grabbed her hand in his as she placed her left hand on his shoulder. "So I see Caroline decided to come. How's that going?" Katie asked.

"She's playing hard to get." He answered. "But I'd rather talk about the fact that you ran for miss Mystic Falls."

"And I lost." She said bitterly as they danced.

"Perhaps you can run again this year." He suggested.

"And lose to an underclassman? No thanks." She replied. "I have a question though." She told him possibly setting herself up for a let down but it was Klaus so she didn't' really care if his answer was what she hoped. "If you were the one and only judge and Caroline and I were running for the crown tonight. Who would you choose?"

"You want me to choose between the two of you?" he asked with a surprised look.

"Maybe you should ask Elijah this question." He told her and her eyes fell.

"Elijah's bias. I want the truth from someone I know fancies both of us." she told him then looked up at him as she adjusted her hand on his shoulder.

"So you are acknowledging the face that I fancy you." he told her with a smirk.

"I am fully aware that you fancy me. You made me a very expensive, very beautiful room in your house and while I may have my oblivious moments I'd have to be blind to not see that you have a thing for me just like you have a thing for Caroline. Choose." She told him.

He smirked at her, "We're out of time, Love."

He gave her a spin and she ended up with Elijah again. "We meet again." She told him with a smile.

"Yes, we have got to stop bumping unto each other like this." He told her with a playful look in his eyes. "My mother has asked to speak to Elena alone." He told her making her tilt her head curiously.

"She's the doppelganger with magical blood and your mother's a witch. I would think that her wanting to talk to Elena wouldn't be out of the ordinary." Katie replied as they danced.

"It's not, but what I do find strange to say the least is her ability to forgive Niklaus." He explained.

"You think she's just pretending to forgive him?" she asked curiously.

"It has me asking questions I never thought I'd ask." He confirmed with a nod. "Do you think I can depend on her to tell me the truth about what my mother says?"

"No." Katie answered without missing a beat. "But she's a bad liar. So it would be useful to ask her to tell you what your mother says before she goes talks to her then give her a sneaky little lie detector test when they're done." Elijah smiled at her and rubbed her side then dipped her as the song ended.

* * *

"Hey." Caroline walked up next to Katie where she stood at the dessert table looking for something that wasn't super sweet.

"Hey." Katie answered back as she grabbed a piece of plain cheesecake and a fork.

"I guess I know now why you looked so happy yesterday morning." Caroline told her and Katie looked up at her from her cheesecake with a small smile. "You're practically glowing."

"So you're here with Klaus?" Katie asked changing the subject.

"He invited me, I came to make sure Rebekah doesn't hurt Matt." Caroline told her with a look at Rebekah and Matt.

"So your attendance tonight has nothing to do with the fact that Klaus is extremely charming when he wants to be?" Katie asked with a smile as she took a bite of cheesecake.

"That… is beside the point." Caroline told her as Klaus caught her eye from across the room and gave her a smile. "I need some fresh air."

Katie smiled when her eyes found Elijah headed her way. "How did it go with Elena?" She asked as he noticed her eating cheesecake.

"We shall see." He answered. "Rebekah said you didn't much care for sweets."

"I usually don't. However," she paused to take the last bite of cheesecake and a waiter held his hand out for the empty plate so she gave it to him, "I can never resist a good cheesecake."

Elijah held his arm out to her. She took it and let him walk her to the ball room where people were dancing to another slow song. "What is your favorite dish?" he asked as they started dancing.

"Anything Italian as long as it doesn't have eggplant in it." she answered with a smile. "What about you?"

"Hmm" he hummed and narrowed his eyes in thought. "Your burned biscuits."

"Really?" she laughed with raised brows.

"No, not really." He answered with a laugh of his own. "I like Japanese curry." He gave her a serious answer.

"You know what else I like?" she asked as she slipped her hand on his shoulder up to his neck and he gave her a look that told her to answer. "You."

He usually wasn't one for public displays of affection, but he couldn't help pressing his lips to hers in a chaste kiss.

* * *

Katie and Elijah were standing in the entryway while everyone gathered when Elijah spotted Elena. "Excuse me for a moment?" He asked and Katie gave him a nod so he walked over to stand next to Elena with his back to Katie. "So how was my mother?"

"Intense." Elena replied.

"And for what reason did she need to speak with you in private?" Elijah asked as he grabbed two glasses of champagne off a tray that was offered to them.

A server walked by with a tray and offered Katie a fresh glass so she switched her warm glass for a new one of bubbly light red champagne then trained her ears back on Elena and Elijah while keeping her eyes diverted.

"Elena, should I be concerned about my mother's intentions?" Elijah pressed.

Elena paused then answered. "She just wanted to apologize for trying to have me killed."

"So it's true, then? She's forgiven Klaus?" Elijah asked and Katie heard Elena's heart beat quicken.

"It's true." Elena lied.

Katie's attention was drawn up to the stairs when Ester tapped her glass getting everyone's attention. "Good evening everyone." Ester addressed everyone while Katie walked over to Elijah's side and he placed his hand on her lower back. "Waiters are coming around with champagne. I invite you all to join me in raising a glass." People started switching out their glasses for the red champagne. "It provides me with no greater joy than to see my family back together as one. I'd like to thank you all for being part of this spectacular evening. Cheers." She raised her glass and everyone else followed suit and echoed the word back.

Elijah turned to Katie and looked lovingly in her eyes, "Cheers." He held his glass out to her and they tapped them together then both took a drink.

The two of them were about to go dance again when they heard a scuffle going on out side. They along with Finn, Rebekah, Klaus and Stefan followed the sound to find Damon crouching over Kol's still body. "Are you crazy?" Stefan asked him.

Elena was the last to make it out and see the spectacle. "Maybe a little." Damon answered then looked at Elena. "Far be it from me to cause a problem." Damon walked away leaving Kol lying on the concrete unconscious from a broken neck.

Thanks to that the party came to a quick end and within thirty minutes everyone was gone. "Should I head home?" Katie asked Elijah.

"You do not want to stay?" he asked.

"I want to, but your mother looks ticked. I didn't know if it would be better for me to get out of dodge. Especially considering I'm sure she doesn't like me." Katie explained quietly.

"You are still more than welcome to stay regardless of what my mother thinks of you." he told her.

"Then I'll stay." she told him then headed upstairs to her room.

* * *

After talking to Ester, Elijah found Katie in her room. "Klaus usually does a better job of decorating a house seamlessly." He said as he walked in and looked around. "This room sticks out like a sore thumb."

"Because he decorated it to my tastes." she answered from where she was sitting in the arm chair in the corner. "When he asked me to live with all of you he asked if I had any requests for my slash our room." she motioned around them with the cell phone in her hand.

"This is what you told him?" he asked with raised brows.

"Well, I said antique white, canopy bed and plush rug. I didn't expect him to actually do it much less take the idea and run with it." she said as she put her cell phone away and stood up. "If you don't like it we can stay in your room."

"Do you like it?" he asked as he closed the space between them and placed his hands on her dress covered sides.

"I do." She answered with an ashamed face. "But I feel bad for liking it because Klaus is the one that did all this for me."

"You do not have to feel bad." He told her as he placed his hand on her cheek.

"But I do." She took his hand off her cheek and held it in hers. "I feel like he's trying to compete with you or something and I shouldn't accept all of this, but at the same time I couldn't make myself be rude and not accept it from him. I'm sure even if I did try it wouldn't have done any good because he's…him. I just don't want," Elijah placed a hand on the back of her neck and looped his other arm around her waist as she kept talking, "you to feel like he-" he kissed her mainly to shut her up, but it quickly became more and she quietly sighed into it.

When the kiss slowed and they pulled apart she bit her lips closed as she opened her eyes and looked into his. "If it were a competition would he have any chance of winning?" he asked, his hand resting on the side of her neck.

"None." She answered without missing a beat. "You already hold my heart."

"Then stop worrying." He told her. "We will make this our room."

"I'm eager to get out of this dress, but I have a request first." She told him as she walked over to the vanity and picked up her cell phone. "Think you can get someone to take a picture of us?"

"I think I can make that happen." He told her and she followed him out of the room and down to the parlor where he found Klaus lounging on the couch with a sketch pad and pencil in his hand. "Niklaus." Elijah said getting his attention. "Take a picture of us?"

Klaus stood up and took Katie's unlocked phone from her. "Should I show him the trash folder?" he asked making her glare at him. "Or do you not want him to know what a naughty girl you've been?"

"Is there something I should know?" Elijah asked with a narrow eyed look between the two of them.

"Yeah, your brother's nosey." Katie answered then looked at Elijah. "He commandeered my phone and went through the trash bin that I forgot to empty after Damon and I broke up."

"You missed one, love." Klaus told her then turned the phone around for Elijah to see a selfie of her lying on Damon's bed wearing only a hot pink and black bra and matching cheeky panties.

"I'm going to murder you!" Katie took her phone from him and punched him in the shoulder as hard as she could.

"You can try." Klaus told her with a laugh.

Katie looked up at Elijah apologetically then back down at her phone as she closed out the trash bin and pulled up the camera. "Will you just…behave for two seconds and take the picture please?"

"Yes, I promise I'll stop snooping." He told her as he forced his smile back and held his hand out for the phone. As he held it up to snap the picture Elijah wrapped his arm around her waist, she placed her hand on his tux covered chest and they both smiled. After they heard the shutter sound Katie stepped away from Elijah and took the phone from Klaus. Satisfied with the picture that Klaus had taken she locked the phone.

"Thank you." she told him with a tone that said she didn't mean it then turned and headed back up to their room. "I'm sorry about that." She told Elijah as they walked into the room and shut the door behind them.

"What are you sorry for?" He asked as he loosened his bow tie then took off his tux jacket.

"I should have remembered to permanently delete those pictures." She pointed out as she sat down on the bed and kicked off her heels.

"Do not worry about it." he told her as he walked over to her and held out his hand.

She placed hers in it and stood up. "Are you sure?" she asked as she felt him start unlacing the ribbons of the corseted dress.

"Positive." He answered as she felt the dress loosen and she grabbed the front of it to keep it from falling to the floor. "What's your password?" he wrapped his arms around her with her phone in his hand.

She let him watch her type in her four digit pass code. While he sat down in the arm chair and messed around with her phone she stepped out of the dress and hung it back on the hanger. When she heard his text tone chime she turned from the wardrobe where she was hanging the dress up to see that he had put down her phone and had his in his hand. "Did you just…"

"Send that picture to my phone and delete it from yours?" he asked her with a smirk as she walked over to him in just her light pink lace strapless bra and matching cheeky panties. "Yes."

She straddled his lap and started unbuttoning his white shirt. "Are you sure your siblings wont listen in on us?" she asked as she finished the last button of his shirt then slid her fingertips down his toned, but not too toned torso.

He narrowed his eyes for a second in thought as he slid his hands down her sides to rest on her hips. "No, but if they do that's their own fault."

She leaned forward and started kissing his neck pulling a sigh from him. As she kissed his soft skin her hands worked on his belt buckle. When it was unfastened along with his button and zipper he whooshed them over to stand next to the bed loosing his pants in the process. She pushed him onto the bed with her hand on his stomach as she got on the bed and straddled him. He whooshed them around so he was on top but she quickly rolled them back over, grabbed his hands and pinned them down beside his head as she sank down on him. The playfulness in her eyes made him roll over only for her to giggle and try to fight him to be on top again, but he was stronger and there for won the fight.

She was kissing his neck again as he rocked into her when he sighed, "Bite me."

She pulled back and looked into his eyes. "What?" he smiled and gave her a nod making her remember that he wanted to blood share with her.

He watched the veins under her eyes show themselves and the whites of her eyes turn red. So he sat them up and tilted his head to the side. A hissing growl left her lips as she sank her teeth into his neck and started drinking from him. Everything in her relaxed and a moan left her lips. The feeling only intensified when he grabbed her wrist and bit it. When he used his free hand to rock her hips against his their senses went into over load and she was pretty sure she saw technicolor fireworks explode behind her closed eyes.

* * *

"Is blood sharing always like that?" Katie asked not basking in the after feeling this time. "I mean, I know you said it was intensely intimate but…wow." She turned onto her side and propped her head up with her elbow and hand.

"I believe our link might've had enhanced it somehow." he answered as he grabbed her hand from his chest and kissed her palm then placed her hand on his neck. She laid her head on his shoulder and he started playing with her hair that was now free of bobby pins and hung around her shoulders.

The mention of their link made her think about Ester threatening to sever it and she frowned. "You know I will always love you…right?"

"Of course." He answered looking down at her to see her frown.

"Even if your mother undoes the spell linking us?" she asked and he gave her a questioning look. "Today…she accused me of using you for your immortality and said that she could easily undo the spell linking us."

"I will _always_ love you and I know without a doubt that you will always love me. Spell or no spell." He kissed her only solidifying his words with the passion of his kiss before he pulled away and picked up his watch off of the bedside table to see that it was two in the morning.

"I swear I could easily trade sleep for you." she laughed as she snuggled into his side and wrapped her arm around his stomach.

He slid his free arm over hers. "Yes, but unfortunately we still need sleep to function properly."

Katie sighed dramatically, "If we must."

He chuckled at her. "Goodnight, My Love."

"Goodnight, Handsome." She whispered two seconds before her eyelids slipped shut.


	33. Chapter 33

**A****/N:** Warning, this chapter doesn't have a happy ending.

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 33**

The first thing to enter Katie's semi conscious state was the feel of Elijah sweeping her hair away from her neck. Half asleep she scooted forward following his scent of clean linen and cologne then found his arm and laid her head on it as she tucked herself into his chest with one arm thrown over his side and the other tucked between them. He smiled at her and simply watched her chest rise and fall. He still found it hard to believe that after one hundred and seventy one years she was there, in his arms once again.

Some things had changed, physically and personality wise, but so much had stayed the same. Like the way she sought him out in her sleep, the fact that she was one of the most observant people he knew yet she still had ditzy moments. Even some of her mannerisms had stayed the same. Her eyes were still the same shade of kelly green with golden flecks, her nose still thin bridged and slightly upturned. The only things that had changed about her physically were her lack of freckles, her hair was more relaxed and naturally darker and her breasts were a cup bigger, all of which he thought were improvements, not that she ever needed improving.

As he took her in she started getting the feeling that she was being watched and it pulled her from her semiconscious state to fully aware. Well, that along with the fact that he had rested his hand on her side and was absentmindedly rubbing it with his thumb. "Are you staring at me?" she asked sleepily with her eyes closed. When he didn't say anything she cracked her eye open to see him looking at her in awe. "You're staring at me." She sighed with a small smile then closed her eye. She would never tire of seeing him look at her like that or the feeling it always sparked in her.

"I prefer to call it gazing." He told her with a thank you so much tone.

"Gaze away, I'm gonna go back to sleep." She sighed not really planning on going back to sleep, she just wanted to continue to cuddle with him.

"You always did like your sleep." He commented.

Katie opened her eyes and looked up at him. "And you always reminded me that nothing good ever happens while you sleep, but these days I beg to differ." She told him with a smirk. "When I went to Duke for the summer we took a tour of the neonatal nursery and I held a baby. That night I remembered that you and I were thinking about adopting a child together."

"A two year old little girl named Nora." He recalled. "That was just another thing that Niklaus took away from me when he killed you." he told her sadly.

"We never got the chance to talk about it before Klaus killed me. Do you really think we could've raised her and her not ask questions about why mommy got older, but daddy didn't?" she asked as she propped her head up with her elbow and hand to look at him without craning her neck.

"We would have had to tell her what I am, but I thought at the time we could have made it work." He told her honestly.

"Maybe sometime, years in the future, we can revisit the idea." She suggested.

"Perhaps." He told her with a small smile.

"Right now, however, I just want to make it to graduation, walk across that stage, get my diploma, and get the hell out of this stupid town." She told him with a sigh. "I know it probably sounds stupid to want to graduate and go to college when I can live forever and do anything or go anywhere, but-"

"You don't have to defend your dreams to me." He cut her off.

"What are your dreams?" she asked curiously.

"I've never had time for dreams." He told her with a shake of his head. "You were the only thing I ever looked forward to."

"Well, here I am." She said with a cheesy smile that made him smile. "Now what?"

"We figure that out as we go." He answered.

"Okay, step one of figure it out as we go…" she told him as she slid on top of him and started kissing his chest making him think she wanted a repeat of last night. But she kissed her way to his ear. "Food, I'm starving." She sat up and slipped her hands down his chest to his stomach. "What's the blood situation like here? Damon and Stefan kept a deep freezer of blood bags in the basement."

Elijah flipped them over and kissed her neck then down to her chest then looked into her eyes. "We are not cavemen. There are blood bags in the kitchen, bottom drawer of the icebox." He whooshed out of the bed and held his hand out to her.

She took it and slipped out of the bed.

"So food or shower first?" he asked as Katie walked over to the dresser and pulled the top drawer open to see seven matching bra and panty sets.

"It doesn't matter to me." She answered.

"Breakfast first." He told her as he walked over and pulled the second drawer of the dresser open to reveal some pajamas and lounge clothes. "I'll meet you downstairs." He pecked her on the forehead then left her to go put on some clothes himself.

She threw on a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top then went down stairs to see Elijah standing at the bar in a pair of black sweat pants and a white t-shirt. She observed him as he emptied a blood bag into a clear glass that was sitting next to an already full one. He gave her a small smirk as he handed her a glass and grabbed the second one for himself. "What are you contemplating?" he asked seeing the familiar look on her face.

"Trying to decide if I like your butt better in suit pants or sweat pants." She answered then took a drink of the blood in the glass.

He gave her a cheeky smile that showed off his nice teeth then quirked a brow at her. "You are much more brazen than you used to be." He pointed out.

"Is that a bad thing?" she asked a little unsure of herself as she looked down at the rich red liquid in her glass.

"No." he told her as he hooked his middle finger under her chin and lifted her head and she met his eyes. "You have to quit assuming that just because I point out how you've changed that I don't like said change."

"Okay." He replied quietly and he dropped his hand from her chin.

"So which is it?" he asked bringing them back around to what she had been contemplating.

"I don't know I think I need to do more research. Turn around." She told him with a smile and a twirl of her finger. He smiled, turned around and walked over to a stool at the bar then sat down and faced her. "Suit pants, hands down." He simply smiled and leaned back in the chair as he took a drink of the blood in his glass.

When her text tone chimed she saw that it was from Caroline and frowned. "What is it?" he asked.

"Caroline wants to talk to me. She asked me to meet her at her house." She answered.

"You do not want to go?" he asked curiously.

"I don't know what I want." She answered as she walked over to stand at the bar across from him.

He watched her take a large drink from her glass. "I know you." she set her glass down and looked at him. "You love your friends. Even Elena despite how much you say you hate her. It's your hurt talking, not you."

"So you think I should go?" she asked as she watched him tap his fingers on his glass with pursed lips.

"I think you should do what you feel is right." He replied as he sat up and took a drink.

"Sometimes the things I love most about you are also the most aggravating." She told him and he gave her a confused narrow eyed look. "You, unlike Damon, don't tell me what to do, even when I want you to." She answered and he finished off the blood in his cup and stood up.

She threw back what little was left in her cup and he held his hand out for the glass as he walked past her. "So what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that I love you and now that I have you back all should feel right in the world, but it doesn't." she answered as she turned and watching him rinse the glasses out and put them in the sink.

"And why is that?" he asked as he turned and leaned against the counter with a narrow eyed look at her.

"I thought by cutting ties with them, giving Caroline back the charm bracelet they gave me for my last birthday, I would feel better, but I don't." she said with a head shake. "When I walked into class Friday Caroline pointed out that I was strangely chipper and I wanted nothing more in that moment to gush and gossip with her like the giddy school girl that I am, but I couldn't. We've been best friends since first grade and losing her and Bonnie because of Elena's pettiness and my own…? It's stupid."

He walked over to her and placed his hand the bar, tapping it with his fingertips before he looked up from it to her. "When you envision your future, are they in it?" after a few seconds of thought she nodded. "Then I think you know what you need to do." She pursed her lips and pulled them to the side as she nodded. "Come, let's shower then you can go to Caroline." Katie nodded and grabbed her phone, texting Caroline back as they made their way upstairs.

* * *

When Katie knocked on Caroline's door, she couldn't help but wonder what exactly was waiting for her on the other side. She could see Caroline through the window on the front door as she walked up and pulled it open. "You came." Caroline looked surprised.

"Should I not have?" Katie asked politely. "Because if Elena and Damon are waiting inside to vervain me again we're going to have some major problems."

"You attacked Damon." Caroline countered.

"Since when do you care about Damon?" Katie asked with a shake of her head.

"Good point." Caroline replied then stepped aside and motioned her in.

Katie walked inside. "So why am I here?" she asked as she followed Caroline to her room only for Bonnie and Elena to come into view sitting on Caroline's bed. A tray of candles sat on the bed between them and the smell of burned sage filled the room.

"What is she doing here?" Elena asked before Katie could.

"We're all going to work out our differences." Caroline answered. "I'm tired of sitting back pointlessly hoping the two of you will work it out."

"She threatened me!" Elena yelled at them with wide eyes.

"And you all but threw yourself at Damon while we were still together." Katie said with a glare.

"I don't have to sit her and listen to this." Elena said as she got up off the bed and headed for the front door. Caroline smirked at Bonnie who smirked back. Katie knowing something was up walked past Caroline out of the room to see Elena try to walk out only to be stopped by an invisible wall. She hit it a few times with her open hand then turned back to look at Bonnie who had also left Caroline's room to watch Elena. "What did you do?"

"Simple boundary spell." Bonnie shrugged. "Neither of you are going anywhere until I say you can."

"Okay, I'll play." Katie sighed as she walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

"You're not going to call Elijah for help?" Elena asked as she walked in and sat down in the recliner across from her.

"Why would I? He doesn't fight my battles for me." Katie asked as she threw her arm across the back of the couch.

Caroline and Bonnie walked into the living room and sat down forming a circle of girls. "Okay," Caroline sighed and looked at Elena, "vent. Tell Katie everything she's done to make you mad."

"Well for starters there's Damon. You let him think you were going to chose him over Elijah all the while you practically pushed him away and made it seem like he was the one falling out of love with you when you were the one who fell out of love with him. You strung him along knowing that you were still in love with Elijah." She told her coldly.

"We fell out of love with each other and in love with other people. It's as simple as that." Katie countered. "Next issue please."

"You sat by and watched Klaus make Stefan kill two innocent people and didn't do anything to try to stop him, you actually thought about joining him and you acted like killing me would be doing you a favor." She told her with a sneer.

"One, I'm not stupid enough to think I could physically stop Klaus from doing anything. I tried to stop him from hurting Tyler and he threatened to kill me. Two, you have _no idea_ how hard it is to resist fresh blood. Three, I was pissed at you and lashing out. If you haven't noticed I had a temper as a human… shit get amplified as a vampire, get over it." she told her as she leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. "Next?"

"You told Damon you would go dark side in order to get Elijah back." Elena pointed out.

"I told Damon I didn't know what lengths I would go to get him back." she corrected her then made a come at me motion.

"We were right not to trust you because you did work with Klaus to get him back." Elena told her.

"Because my friends who I would have thought would help me, turned their backs on me and left me no other choice." Katie told her with anger flashing behind her eyes.

"Okay, Elena, is there anything else you want to say?" Caroline asked and Elena shook her head no. So Caroline looked at Katie, "You have the floor."

"Okay, I was told to vent so here it goes." Katie said then leaned back. "You flirted with Damon while we were still together. You stabbed Rebekah in the back despite the fact that she helped all of you get Klaus here. You, unlike me, really are stringing two men along. You turned Damon against me. You gave Rebekah to Klaus and told him that she knew that he was the one that killed their mother just to ensure that he would not only never un-dagger her but would also never un-dagger Elijah because he knew one of you would tell him and turn Elijah against him yet again. You would think that you ensuring the love of my life would never see the light of day would be what hurt the most, but it's not. I don't have family I considered all of you family and YOU turned them away from me." she didn't bother pushing back the blood that rushed to her face or the tears that slipped down her cheeks as she stood up to glare at her. "I have never felt more alone and isolated than I did then. _That_, Elena, is what hurt the most."

"Katie I think that was a bit much." Bonnie spoke up seeing the tears slipping down not only Katie and Elena's cheeks but Caroline's as well.

"Ester is planning on killing all of her children." Elena told her as she wiped at the tears on her face. "She's linked them together so if one dies they all die."

"Elena!" Bonnie scolded her.

"What?" Katie asked as she stumbled back to sit back down on the couch.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie, I can't let her kill Elijah. He found a way to save me when Klaus wanted to sacrifice me." She looked at Katie as a few more tears slipped down her cheeks. "He doesn't deserve to die and I can't hurt Katie any more than I already have. We'll find another way to kill Klaus."

Katie grabbed her phone and dialed Elijah's number, but Bonnie knocked the phone out of her hand and stomped on it. "I can't let you tell him."

"Bonnie!" Elena stood up at the same time Katie did.

"Drop the barrier." Katie told her as she eyes grew dark.

"No." Bonnie argued. "I'm sorry, but Klaus has to die and it's happening tonight, on the full moon. Ester needed a celestial event."

"You're working with her?" Katie asked in disbelief.

"She's channeling the entire Bennett ancestral line for power." Bonnie told her as she lifted her chin in defiance.

"Drop the barrier Bonnie!" Katie yelled as once again the blood rushed to her eyes only for her to be knocked to her knees in pain as Bonnie held her hand up. Not knowing what else to do Katie closed her eyes and called to Elijah.

In less than a minute he was at the front door, but couldn't come inside since he hadn't been invited in. "Katie!" he called hearing her groans in pain.

"Bonnie stop it!" Elena begged and Bonnie stopped.

Katie whooshed to the door and threw it open only to be stopped by the spell that was still in place. "What is going on?" he asked with a look at her friends behind her.

"Bonnie's trapped me in here." She told him then turned to look at Bonnie then Elena. "Tell him what you told me?"

Elena walked over to stand next to Katie on their side of the barrier. "My blood was in the champagne toast last night. Ester used it in a spell to link you and your siblings together. She's planning on killing you all tonight during the full moon." She told him and Katie saw anger flash in Elijah's dark brown eyes.

Katie turned and walked over to Bonnie. "If you do not drop that barrier I will _never_ forgive you. What would you do if things were reversed? If it was Jeremy that Ester was trying to kill." Katie asked hoping to appeal to Bonnie's humanity. "Please."

Bonnie reluctantly closed her eyes, holding her hands out to the side for a minute then dropped them and opened her eyes. "It's down."

Katie waved her hand through the doorway freely then whooshed the short distance into Elijah's arms. As they hugged Elijah whispered in her ear, "Grab Elena and give her to me." She pulled back and gave him a questioning look. He gave her a hard faced nod so she turned and looked at Elena who was still standing inside the house.

"Sorry in advance." Katie said as she grabbed her and moved her out of the door. Elijah took her and whooshed away. Katie whooshed after them, keeping track of them with her link to Elijah since he was faster than her. When she caught up to them Elijah had found one of the tunnels that ran under the town, made a hole in the ground and put Elena inside. "So why did we just take her and put her in a random tunnel?"

"We are going to need the Salvatore's assistance. Elena's safety will be their motivation." He answered as he pulled out his phone and called Rebekah. He informed her of what was going on and gave her the task of keeping an eye on Elena. "Some of your friends might die today. If you do not want to participate I will understand." Elijah told her matter-of-factly.

"If I'm being completely honest I'm still in a bit of sock over the fact that your mother is trying to kill all of you and…I don't like this." She motioned to Elena in the ground and Rebekah who pulled up in Elijah's car.

"Do you have another suggestion on how we should precede?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

"No and that's the problem. I don't want anyone to die today, but it seems there's no way around it. So I'm going to participate and do everything I can to save everyone." She told him and she saw a fleeting frown. "You would prefer me not to?" she asked and he nodded.

"You are aware that you can't save everyone, right?" he asked seriously.

"I am fully aware, but that won't stop me from trying." She told him with a shrug of her shoulders. He pursed his lips and looked past her with a glare. "I'm pissing you off."

"No, you are not." he told her as he looked at her and placed his hand on her neck. "Things could get dangerous and I do not want to lose you again." He told her solemnly.

"I'm not going anywhere." She told him sternly. He was tucking her hair behind her ear with his middle finger when Rebekah got out of the car and walked over.

* * *

Elijah sat in the high back chair in the parlor of the boarding house while Katie stood behind him with her arms crossed over the back of it. "I couldn't find her." Stefan said as he walked through the front door and his eyes landed on Katie and Elijah then looked at Damon who was leaning on the archway that led into the parlor.

"They have Elena." Damon told Stefan without looking at him.

"Actually Rebekah has her." Katie corrected. "You can probably guess at all the screwed up ways Rebekah has imagined killing her."

"So, if you want to save Elena's life, I need you to help me stop my mother." Elijah told them as he rubbed his thumb over his fingertips of his hand that rested on the arm rest of the chair.

"I'm a little embarrassed to admit, but when it comes to killing thousand year old resurrected witches…I'm a little rusty." Damon told them with a sarcastic eye roll.

"Yes, unfortunately even when killed my mother doesn't seem to want to stay dead. Not with the spirits of nature at her side." Elijah told them.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Stefan asked as he walked down the two steps and into the parlor.

"The witches that released my mother, she's drawing her power from their bloodline. That line needs to be broken." He told them.

"Broken?" Stefan asked.

"Yeah, he means…" Damon said then drew his pointer finger across his neck.

"You want us to kill them." Stefan said more than asked.

"Actually I've been thinking. No one needs to permanently die." Katie chipped in making Elijah look up over his shoulder at her since she hadn't said anything to him about it. "Turn Bonnie's mom. Turn a witch into a vampire and she's no longer a witch. That should put a kink in the bloodline and cut off Ester's power." She walked around the chair to stand next to Elijah.

He gave her an impressed look. "That is extremely cleaver of you." Katie just shrugged.

"Why don't you two do it?" Damon asked.

"We would." Elijah answered. "But we have absolutely no idea where they are. Besides, seeing one of us, they'd immediately know our intent." He stood up and wrapped his arm around Katie's waist. "They won't expect to be harmed by the likes of you. In any case, you have until 6 minutes after 9 to find them." Katie reached over and grabbed Elijah's suit jacket off of the chair he had draped it over and handed it to him.

"Oh, how super specific of you." Damon popped off.

"By 9:07 the moon will be full. My mother will have the power she needs to kill me and my family. If you do not stop her before then, Rebekah will kill Elena. So we all have our timeline." Elijah told them as he walked over to stand not far away from them. "I suggest you get started." He walked between them hitting both of their shoulders with his.

With him on his way out Katie walked over to stand close in front of Damon. "I'm sorry we took Elena. I don't like it, but it's the only thing that we knew would light a fire under your asses." She placed her hand on Damon's chest and looked him in the eyes that she once loved. "Please don't let her take him from me." Damon swallowed hard and gave her a nod. She dropped her hand and walked over to Elijah who was waiting for her at the door.

* * *

They had parked outside the grill where they knew Klaus and Kol were and were getting out of the car when Elijah fell to the ground with a groan. "Elijah?" Katie asked and whooshed around the car to see him turning blue grey. "Damn it Damon." She growled to herself realizing that someone had daggered an original and Damon and Stefan were most likely behind it.

Katie and Klaus both heard a scuffle and whooshed at the same time almost colliding at the entrance of the alleyway beside the grill, but she saw him and came to a grinding halt while he went down to the ally and pulled the dagger out of Kol's chest, threw Alaric into the wall then when Stefan came at Klaus, Katie whooshed down grabbed him by his neck and body slammed him into the ground so hard he was knocked out. "Hello there, Sweetheart." Klaus greeted her as she turned around and whooshed to his side, glaring at Damon.

"I asked you for one thing. One thing, keep Ester from killing people I care about!" she yelled at him.

"What did you just say?" Klaus asked with a look between the two of them.

"Leave him." Elijah's voice from behind them made them turn to see Elijah standing at the top of the stairs that led up out of the ally. "We still need him."

"What did mother do?" Klaus asked. "What did she do Elijah?"

Elijah stuck his hand in his coat pocket as he walked down the steps past Katie and Klaus to Damon and pulled his phone out. "You tell me where the witches are or I'll have my sister kill Elena right now."

Damon looked up at the clock tower. "You told me we had until after nine."

"I'm sure Rebekah would be more than happy to start her work early." Elijah pointed out.

"They're at the witch massacre house." He told them with a sigh.

"I should have guessed. That place is a witch juju hot spot." Katie said with a sigh as she walked over to Stefan, picked him up and shoved him into Damon. "Hop to it and don't screw it up this time." She motioned him to the stairs and he whooshed off. With him gone and Kol starting to wake up Katie looked between Elijah and Klaus. "I'll give you three a minute." She entered the grill through the side door and to the bar where she grabbed a bottle of bourbon and a glass as she walked around the bar and sat down on a bar stool.

She was a fourth of the way through the bottle when Elijah came in and took the bottle from her hand. "Would you mind doing me a favor?"

"Anything." She told him as she slipped from the stool and stood up straight.

"Come with my brothers and me to stand against our mother." He told her and she let her shock show on her face. She thought for sure that he would ask her to sit it out and let his family take care of family business.

Katie kissed him on his cheek. "Of course I'll go with you."

* * *

Katie held Elijah's hand as she and the brothers walked up the hill to the house where a salt pentagram with a lit torch at each of the points had been drawn on the front lawn. "Katie, your presence here is highly disrespectful." Ester pointed out. "This is a family affair."

"Katie became my family the moment Fiona linked us, mother." Elijah argued.

"Elijah, I find your attachment to this girl surprising. I would think that by now you would understand that any woman you love is fated to die." Ester told him.

"That's why we're linked." Katie spoke up.

"How many times do you think you can return from the dead before it starts to take a toll on your soul? There is a price to pay for cheating death. Nature always finds a balance." She told Katie who only glared back at her. Elijah pulled Katie into his side and Kol took a step closer to the salt circle.

"Stay beside me." Finn told his mother as she walked into the circle.

"It's okay. They can't enter." She said as Kol tried to enter and the torches flared.

"That's lovely. We're stuck out here while the favorite son plays sacrificial lamb." Kol said. "How pathetic you are, Finn."

"Be quiet Kol. Your brother knows virtue you can not even imagine." Ester told him.

"Whatever you think of us killing your own children would be an atrocity." Elijah told her with a glare.

"My only regret is that I did not let you die a thousand years ago." Ester told them with a hard face.

"Enough, all this talk is boring me." Klaus spoke up. "End this now, mother, or I'll send you back to hell." Katie looked at him to see and evil smirk on his face.

"For a thousand years, I've been forced to watch you, felt the pain of every victim, suffered while you shed blood. Even you, Elijah." She turned her eyes to Elijah, "With your claim to nobility, you're no better." He shifted his weight on his feet and Katie gave his hand a squeeze that he returned. "All of you… You're a curse on this earth stretched out over generations. If you've come to plead for you life, I'm sorry. You've wasted your time."

They were all forced to watch as Ester closed her eyes and held her hands out to the side not long after she started working her spell the flames started misbehaving. "No." Ester whispered. "Sisters, do not abandon me!" she yelled out but the torches spiked so high and hot that they all turned away and Elijah pulled Katie into him covering her with his jacket to keep her from the flames. When the torches went out they looked in the circle to see Finn and Ester gone.

* * *

Katie stood on Elena's porch a note from Elijah in her hand as she lifted it and rapped on the door with her knuckles. After a minute Elena opened the door. "Katie." She said a bit shocked to see her.

"I think it's time we had an actual talk." Katie sighed. "One where I don't yell at you."

"What's that?" Elena asked with a point to the cream colored envelop in Katie's hand.

"A letter from Elijah." She said as she held it out to her. "For once I wasn't nosey. I don't know what it says, but I know neither of us feel very good about how things went down today."

Elena took it and stepped aside for Katie to come in. "Rebekah threatened to burn me alive." She told her as Katie came in and Elena shut the door behind her.

"Like I said, we're not happy about it." she told her as Elena walked into the living room. "We both did things we're not proud of. He used his sister like a weapon against you and I suggested that Damon and Stefan turn Bonnie's mom."

"What?" Elena asked with a shocked look.

"The only way to keep Ester from using Bennett magic was the break the Bennett line. It was either one of them die or one of them turn. At least this way Bonnie's mom keeps breathing to see another day." Katie told her as she walked over to the couch and sat down. "I didn't get a chance to thank you for telling me about Ester's plan." She watched Elena sit down in the white armchair that sat adjacent to the couch. "Why did you?"

"Because I've hurt you enough and it's time we stopped fighting. We've gotten into our fair share of fights over the years. This one's by far the worst, but we always manage work it out and move on." she told her with a shake of her head.

"The key difference between this fight and all the others is even though we were fighting, we were still friends." Katie pointed out.

"Do you think we can be friends again?" Elena asked.

Katie shrugged, "I wish I could say yes and things could go back to how they used to be. But...no, I don't. You guys are always going to be looking for a way to kill Klaus and yeah, there was a time when I wanted him dead too, but that's changed." Katie told her as she stood up. "We can't be friends, but I don't want to hate you anymore either. It's exhausting if I'm being honest. I came here to thank you and apologize for what I've done. So, Thank you, I'm sorry and," she walked over to the door and pulled it open then turned and looked at Elena, "Goodnight."

Elena gave her a tight lipped smile and a nod. "Goodnight.

* * *

She stopped by her house and grabbed her school stuff then headed to the Mikaelson mansion. It was quiet when she walked in and she found Rebekah in the kitchen eating ice cream. "You got me hooked." Rebekah pointed at her with the spoon in her hand and Katie gave her a small smile.

"Where is everyone?" Katie asked as she set her heavy bag on the counter.

"Elijah is waiting for you in your room and if I had to guess Nik is in his studio." She answered. "Kol has fled."

"I'm sorry things didn't work out." Katie told her then grabbed her bag and put the strap over her shoulder then headed up stairs. When she walked into the open door of her room she found Elijah sitting in the armchair in the corner. "What's up?" she asked feeling that something was off.

"We need to talk." The four words made her heart plummet to the pit of her stomach.

"Nothing good ever comes from that sentence." She said as she walked over and pulled the chair at her vanity out and sat down, putting her bag on the floor.

"I've been thinking about what my mother said." He started and the fact that he wasn't looking at her made a knot form in her stomach. "You have plans for your future, hopes, dreams, and if I am in your life you will never achieve them."

It suddenly felt as if the knot in her stomach formed painful spikes making tears pool in her eyes. "What are you saying?"

"I'm removing myself from your life. If I stay, you won't live long enough to have a life. I know that if you die you will come back, but how long will it be before you remember me and what kind of damage will it do to your soul?" He asked his face hard as he stood up from the arm chair.

"You're leaving me?" Katie asked loudly as she stood up, the tears now slipping down her cheeks. He gave her a nod. "You let her get into your head. She's a liar, Elijah. Just because your history with women is tragic doesn't mean I'm fated to die."

"You have already died once because of me. I'm not going to let it happen again." He told her, his face still hard, as if he was putting on a face to keep from crying, but she could see the tears pooling in his eyes.

"You said you would never hurt me, that you would always love me." She sobbed pointing her finger at him accusingly.

"I don't want to hurt you and I will always love you..." he placed his hand on her cheek, wiping at a tear with his thumb, "That is why I'm letting you go."

"Please don't leave me." She whispered as she nestled her cheek into his hand.

A tear slipped down his cheek, "I don't want to, but I have to." He took a step closer to her and kissed her forehead then whispered, "Goodbye, my love." with a whoosh he was gone.

Her hands started shaking and she stumbled back until her legs hit the foot board of her bed and she sank down to sit on the floor as her body shook with sobs. Rebekah heard Katie's heartbreaking cries and couldn't help going to her. When she saw her sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees she walked over, quietly sat down next to her and wrapped her arm around her shoulders. Katie was thankful to Rebekah. It felt like forever since someone had been there for her like that.

Eventually Katie quieted enough that Rebekah got her to get up off the floor and tucked her into bed. "There now..." Rebekah told her as she brushed her tear dampened hair out of her face, "get some rest." In that moment she didn't care that she felt like a child getting comforted by an adult. She was just glad Rebekah was there for her.

Rebekah walked over to the door and was about to turn the light off when Katie said, "Hey, Rebekah?" Rebekah turned and looked at her, "Thank you." Rebekah gave her a small smile and a nod.

She eventually fell asleep, but it didn't last long before she woke up and looked at the clock on the wall to see that it was two in the morning. Knowing she wasn't going to get any more sleep she pulled herself from the bed and gathered some clothes and went to the bathroom.

After a cool shower she went down stairs to the kitchen where she grabbed a blood bag then started wandering around the house aimlessly. When she found a room with paintings on the walls, an easel with a blank canvas, and several drawings lying on a table she assumed she was in Klaus's studio.

She was looking at the drawings on the table when she found one of her in her ball gown. Tears started slipping down her eyes again. "No tears on the art work please." She heard Klaus say from the entrance of the room behind her. She wiped her face and finished off the blood bag in one go. She looked around the room and tossed the bag into a trashcan that contained wadded up sketch pad paper. "I hate seeing you like this." He told her as he walked over to her then gently grabbed her chin in his hand and made her look up at him. "He has extinguished your fire." Her face twisted as she squeezed her eyes shut and started sobbing again.

Not knowing what else to do he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into him. He was surprised when she wrapped her arms around his thin torso and nuzzled her face into his neck. With one smooth fast movement he picked her up bridal style and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He carried her back up to her room and laid her on the bed then lay down across from her.

"What's going on in that beautiful head of yours?" Klaus asked, but Katie just shook her head no. "Answer me sweetheart before I decide to bleed the vervain from your system and compel you to forget all about Elijah."

"How could he leave me?" She asked, his threat not even fazing her. "He waited a hundred and seventy one years to find me and just… leaves?"

"How Elijah or any man for that matter could leave you is beyond me." He told her quietly. With a sigh she slid from the bed and grabbed her school bag and her car keys that were on the corner of the vanity. "Where are you going, Love?"

"My house." She answered sounding just as numb as she felt.

"I would prefer you stay here. At least for a few days." He told her as he got up off the bed and walked over to her.

"You know what I would like?" she asked and he just blinked at her. "For people to stop hurting me. Just once, I want my emotions to not be a roller coaster ride." She told him talking with her hands. "I care too easily for people and regardless of what they say, people don't care about me. If I stay here I'll get attached to you and Rebekah even more than I already am and it will only hurt that much more when you leave too. Call it self preservation." She told him then walked away.


	34. Chapter 34

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 34**

Katie managed to mind her own business for a month. Her only friends at school were Rebekah, who talked her out of quitting cheer considering that during their routines was the only time Katie ever smiled anymore, and Caroline who had stopped ignoring her and talked to her like they used to despite keeping certain things to themselves. Klaus had been busy dodging attempts against his and Rebekah's lives. Like Damon and Stefan killing Finn in an attempt to kill all the originals, but it didn't work because Klaus made Bonnie un-link the siblings, so it didn't work. It did however reveal that when an original is killed, every vampire they've turned along with anyone those vampires turned, died. Even with everything going on, Klaus managed to find time to shoot her a random text here and there to check up on her. She always replied with, I'm fine. Everyone knew she wasn't.

Rebekah had also tried to talk Katie into going to the 20's decade dance tonight, but Katie just didn't think she could sit through a stupid dance without being completely miserable. She was sitting at her kitchen table doing homework when she heard someone knock on the door. She didn't answer, assuming it was Rebekah coming to try one more time to get her to go to the dance, whoever it was let themselves inside. "Rebekah I told you I'm not going to that stupid dance." She sighed only to see Klaus when she looked up. He wore an off white tux, a blue and white tie and a yellow hankie in the pocket of his jacket. His hair was lightly gelled and parted on the side. If she was being completely honest she didn't think it was his best look.

"Well she may have failed at getting you to go but she succeeded at talking me into it." He informed her as her eyes took in the green dress with black sparkling beads and tassels hanging off the short zig-zag hem line, knotted white beads and a green headband with peacock feathers on it was looped over the hook of the hanger that hung off his finger.

"And she asked you to ask me to be your date?" Katie asked tiredly.

"Actually it was my idea." He told her with a closed lipped smile. "You've been locking yourself in this house every day after school. You need to get out and have some fun."

"I can assure you that a high school dance will not be fun." She told him flatly. "Besides there's like a seventy five percent chance that something is going to go incredible wrong at that dance given the fact that since Damon and Stefan came to town our dances have been a hot spot for vampire, witch, werewolf activity."

"If I'm going so are you." he walked over, grabbed her arm and pulled her up from the chair with ease.

"I've told you once and I tell you again, I don't take orders from you." she told him as she took her arm out of his hand.

"Such defiant words from a woman with not even the slightest spark of fire in her eyes." he told her as he cupped her chin in his big hand. "My brother extinguished you. I have every intention of setting you ablaze once again." The look in his eyes sent a shiver through her spine that made her swallow hard and drop her eyes. When she looked back up at him he gave her a smirk and slipped his thumb over her cheek bone. "Now, go get dressed." He lifted the dress up, but instead of taking it from him she cocked a brow at him and a smirk of her own tugged at the corner of her lips. He rolled his eyes. "Please." She took the dress and went up stairs.

An hour later she came down stairs wearing the dress. Her hair was simply twisted and tucked at the back of her head to make her hair blond and red hair appear short and the headband went across her forehead, the bundle of peacock feathers sat above her right ear. Simple eye shadow let her red lips be the focal point of her face. "The shoes don't really match, but they are the only black ones I own." She motioned to the black heals she wore to homecoming.

"Trust me, Love, no one will be looking at your feet." He told her, drinking her in as she walked over to him, the tassels brushing against her upper thighs as she did.

"Then tell me, what will they be looking at?" she asked as she grabbed her keys and debit card off the table behind the couch that they were standing next to then put them in the black clutch in her hand along with her lipstick and makeup wipes, never breaking eye contact with him.

His eyes moved down to her red lips then a little further taking in how the lines of black beads on the bust of the dress accented her curves before he looked back up at her eyes. "Lucky for you the women of the 1920's were fairly modest when I came to dresses."

"Yeah…lucky me." She sighed then snapped the clutch shut. "Can we just get this over with?"

"If you do not at least attempt to have fun then going to this dance is pointless." He told her and she just looked at him. "Smile." The smallest smile pulled at the corner of her lips for a fleeting second. "You can do better than that." She pulled her lips back showing off her teeth. "Are you silently growling at me, Love? Come on! Smile." He told her in an up beat voice attempting to fire her up. She pursed her lips and pulled them to the side as she raised her brows at him. "Smile or I'll find that ass hole class mate that hit on you at homecoming and break his spine like I originally wanted to." Thinking about Klaus scaring the shit out of that sleazy guy brought a small smile to her face. "Not nearly good enough, but I'll take it."

"Can we go now?" she asked with a motion to the door. He walked over to it and pulled it open for her.

* * *

When they walked into the gym Caro Emerald's "That Man" filled their ears while everyone danced to the upbeat song. "You would have liked the twenties." Klaus told her as they walked into the crowd to find a place to dance. As they found a spot the song cut off and a slow song started. Klaus grabbed her hand and pulled her into him with his arm looped around her waist. "The girls were reckless, sexy…fun." He pulled her closer and spun her around. "They literally used to dance until they dropped."

"From exhaustion or blood loss?" Katie asked with a look up at him through her lashes.

"Answer me this." He slid his hand down to the small of her back. "If you lived somewhere where vampires and their natural habits and impulses were not frowned upon and judged as harshly as the people in this town do. Would you not give in and indulge in all the things being a vampire could offer you? Would you not murder just for the fun of it?"

Katie thought back to her time in Nashville. Being away from Mystic Falls, where no one knew her or what she was…She had done some things that made her feel good in a bad way. She lured men into her hotel room, got them drunk, compelled them, fed on them, and while she didn't sleep with anyone she did make out with one guy she was pretty sure was a model. When he grew inpatient and dipped his head into her line of view she looked at him. "Indulge? Most definitely, but there's a line I don't cross and I draw it long before murder comes into the picture."

"You say that like you've had to draw that line before." He observed.

"Because I have." She answered as she let go of his hand and placed both of hers on his neck as they danced. He slid his hands up her back holding her closer. "And it was fun." He smiled before he realized they had been dancing for a while and Rebekah hadn't made an appearance. "What?" she asked watching him look around.

"Have you seen Rebekah?" he asked.

"No." Katie answered looking around spotting Caroline and Tyler, Elena and Stefan, Bonnie and some guy she guess was her mother's adopted son Jamie, who according to Caroline Bonnie liked. She didn't see Rebekah anywhere. "She's made it her goal to hijack this dance from Caroline. I'm sure she'll be here soon." Caroline noticed Katie and gave her a small smile then realized who Katie was dancing intimately with and gave her a questioning look. Katie realized then how close Klaus was holding her and the fact that she didn't hate it. "I need some air." She pushed him back and went outside intending on going to her car, but she slammed into an invisible wall a few feet outside the gym. "What the hell?" she asked looking down to see a line of salt. Her eyes followed it to see that it encircled the entire school.

"Esther's back. We're all trapped in here." Stefan told her.

"Why won't that bitch just stay dead?" She sighed.

"Rebekah, call me back immediately." They heard Klaus say as he walked out of the gym. "I only came to this ridiculous dance because you begged me to it and now you're nowhere to be found." He looked up to see her and Stefan. "Call me back." he hung up and looked back and forth between Katie, Stefan and the salt line. "What is this?"

"Esther is back from the dead, again." Katie answered. "We're stuck in here."

* * *

The dance was called off and the human students were free to walk out of the salt ring. Bonnie tried to do a locator spell on Elena, but Esther fought her on it. Because she was channeling a hot spot, Klaus knew Esther was at the old cemetery where Klaus first killed her. Since none of them could leave, Matt and Jeremy went after Esther and Elena.

Katie sat in the cafeteria waiting for Esther to die again so she could leave when Klaus found her. "I should not have dragged you here tonight. You were right about this schools history of dances and trouble." He told her as he sat down across from her.

"It's fine. It might not have shown, but I was actually having fun." He gave her a smile and she changed the subject. "I just hope Matt and Jeremy can stop your mother from doing whatever it is she's trying to do." She told him as she put her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. "We all know she wants you dead and if you die...Tyler along with whoever else is part of your sire line dies too."

"I turned the vampire that turned the vampire who turned Katerina." He told her as he stood up. "You are part of my sire line and I will not let you die." he walked out.

Katie was still sitting there when Bonnie came in and told her that Esther wasn't fighting her anymore and the barrier was down. "There's something else you should know." Bonnie told Katie as she walked past her ready to go home. "It's about Alaric." Katie stopped and turned back to her. "Ester turned him into an original vampire and he's not going to complete the transition." Katie felt tears pool in her eyes. "We're all going to the cemetery to tell him goodbye, you should come with us." Katie swiped her hand over her face wiping away a tear that slipped and nodded.

When she got to the cemetery she saw that practically everyone was there. Elena, Jeremy, Damon, Stefan, Caroline, Tyler, Matt, and some woman that Katie had never met before were all standing around outside the tomb Alaric was in. Alaric walked out of the tomb and took them all in with tears in his eyes. As his eyes landed on Katie, leaning on a statue beside Matt she couldn't help walking over to him. He opened his arms for her and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "You'll always be my favorite teacher." She told him through her tears.

He laughed and pushed her back a little. "And you'll always be my favorite and best student." He told her as he wiped her tear with the back of one of his fingers.

"Good bye, Alaric." She told him as she turned and walked away from everyone.

She didn't know where she was going when she got into her car she just knew she couldn't go home yet. After thirty minutes of aimless driving she ended up at the Mikaelson mansion. Deciding that she ended up there for a reason she got out and let herself inside. "My survival will haunt you through Eternity." She followed Klaus' voice to find him looking down on his mother lying in a coffin. "_You_ will never destroy me!" feeling her there he asked. "What do you want?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt I just…I was driving and I ended up here." He turned and looked at her with angry eyes. "I'll go."

He noticed her reddened eyes and tear streaked cheeks. "Stay." he told her quietly. So she walked into the room and around all the open empty coffins to the one Rebekah was in. A dagger was lying on the table at the head of her coffin. "So what exactly happened to her tonight?"

"My guess is my mother fooled all of us into thinking she was dead by taking over Rebekah's body. When she no longer had a use for it she had someone dagger her so she could jump back into her original body." He told her then walked out of the room full of coffins.

"I think I hate witches just as much as I hate this town." Katie sighed as she followed him to the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle of alcohol and poured her a drink and one for himself.

"You forget, you wouldn't be alive right now if your witch friend hadn't linked you to Elijah." He pointed at her with his hand that held his glass as she sat down in the barstool across from him and picked up the glass that he slid to her.

"Yeah, and look where that got me." She commented with a motion around her.

"Sharing a drink with a friend?" he asked playing stupid.

"No, stuck in a world of pain and misery. Of one disappointment after another…of lies and hallow words and meaningless promises. I don't even know why I'm still in this town." She told him then threw back the drink and pushed the glass across the bar to him.

"You're still here because you've never lost sight of your true goal." He told her as he poured her more and slid the glass back to her. "Graduation then med. school."

"That's the funny thing." Katie pointed at him then dropped her hand to the bar and picked up her glass. "Elijah left me because he didn't want me to die before I accomplished my dreams. Now I don't see the point of it all. My dreams mean nothing if I have no one to share the victory of accomplishing them with."

"I would argue that they mean more because you accomplished them all by yourself." He told her then took a drink.

"How can you encourage me to be alone when you yourself can't even stand the thought of it?" she asked then through back her drink and pushed it across the bar to him. "I mean, isn't that why you want Elena alive? So you can use her blood to sire a back up family when your blood family fails you?" he set his drink on the bar and blinked at her. "I'm not judging, just sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. I apologize."

"Maybe you should slow down." He pointed out not giving her a refill.

"I don't want to slow down. I want to get so drunk that I can no loner feel my face much less the weight that is constantly sitting on my chest." She told him as she hopped down off the stool, walked around the bar, grabbed the bottle and looked him in the eyes as she pressed the rim of the rim to her lips and took a large drink.

"You really think that's a good idea considering what happened the last time we drank together?" he asked as he watched her move the bottle away from her wet lips then wipe her hand over them.

"Most likely not." She told him then turned her back on him and walked off. He followed her to his studio where she started looking at the paintings on the wall. "I don't know anything about art. So I'm just going to ask, how many of these did you do and how many are by famous artists?"

She took a drink as he walked over to stand next to her, "They are all mine." He answered then took the bottle from her and took a drink. "The famous ones are scattered throughout the house."

"Okay." Was all she said as she turned around and walked over to the couch that sat in the middle of the room and sat down. "I had to take a couple of art classes in school, but our art teacher was a major pot head so we didn't actually learn anything other than the ninja turtles are all named after famous artists. As long as we were quiet and did something even close to art we passed."

He walked over and sat down beside her, propping the bottle up on the arm of the couch. "Please tell me you did not glue macaroni to a piece of paper and call it art."

She laughed. "I'm not a three year old. I colored in a coloring book." She told him with her chin held high and he smiled then closed his mouth deciding to keep his comments to himself. She laughed a little at his reaction. "I passed that's all I cared about." She held her hand out for the bottle. He gave it to her and she took a drink then handed it back to him.

She pulled out her phone and unlocked it to see what time it was only for her eyes to land on the picture of her and Elijah after the ball. She couldn't bring herself to change it yet. Her hand went to the infinity sign that still hung around her neck.

Knowing she was thinking about Elijah, Klaus plucked the unlocked phone out of her hand and changed her background so that she didn't see Elijah's face every time she used her phone. He was handing it back to her when Rebekah came into the room. "What happened?" she asked with a tired look at the two of them.

"Excuse me for a minute, love." Klaus told her then walked out of the room with Rebekah.

Katie wandered over to the table that had drawings scattered across it. Eventually she came across the one Klaus had drawn of her in her ball gown. She was looking at it when Klaus came back. "Why did you draw this?" she asked holding up the picture as she turned to him.

"Because I find inspiration in beauty and it is no secrete that I think you are beautiful." He answered as he took the paper from her and set it back down on the table behind her. "And smart, relatable, strong, brave, honest, loyal, understanding, non-judgmental-"

"Stop." She told him as she looked down at the floor. "Just…stop trying to make me feel better about myself when I know there has to be something fundamentally wrong with me."

"Katie," he stepped into her and hooked his finger under her chin, pushing her head up but she didn't look at him. "Look at me, sweetheart." She lifted her eyes to his. "You…are a uniquely incredible woman."

"If I'm so incredible why do I always end up alone?" she asked.

In that moment all he wanted to do was kiss her, take her to his room and show her just how perfect he thought she was, but he also knew that after everything she had been through in the past few months, despite the fact that she had flirted back with him tonight, her heart was hard as stone and it wouldn't change anytime soon.

He sighed as he moved his hands to her hips and leaned down pressing his forehead to hers. "I wish I could assure you that you are not alone and you never will be, but you do not need to be force fed any more lies." She bit her lip to keep from crying and nodded. When he tilted his head slightly she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead, he pressed his lips to her cheek. "Goodnight, Katie." He let her go and left her alone.

Not feeling like going home she grabbed the bottle of half drank alcohol and headed to the kitchen. Rebekah came in and found her eating a pint of strawberry ice cream she'd found in the freezer amongst other flavors she couldn't stomach. "Sorry, I raided your stash."

"It's fine. I have plenty." Rebekah told her as she grabbed a pint of buttered pecan then shut the fridge and grabbed a spoon. "I'm sure we could both use it right now." she popped off the lid and threw it in the trash. "I'm sorry about your teacher. He seemed like a good guy."

"He was. I'm sorry about your mom." Katie answered as she played with the pink, slightly melted ice cream with her spoon.

"Are you staying here tonight?" Rebekah asked with a look at the clock.

Katie shrugged. "I don't really feel like being alone in my house right now."

"Well, you know where your room is at and I'm sure Nic won't care if you stay." Rebekah told her then started walking away, taking her ice cream up to her room. "Goodnight."

"Night." Katie called back. She grabbed the bottle of rum and took a drink then headed upstairs, grabbed a tank top and shorts and headed to the bathroom. After showering she laid down in bed and tried to go to sleep, but the way Klaus looked at her when he told her he intended on setting her ablaze, the feel of his hands on her while they danced, when he kissed her cheek after he killed Mikael, when he'd kissed her in this house before it had been renovated and when he kissed her cheek tonight filled her mind. The memories played in her head over and over until finally she sat up and brushed her fingers through her damp hair with an aggravated sigh.

She slipped out of bed and put on a satin robe then left the room and went out back to the garden that now had bright flowers where dead rose bushes had once been, taking a walk in the night air to clear her head. It worked for the most part, but on her way back to her room she noticed the light on in the parlor and her feet took on a mind of their own. They brought her to Klaus sitting on the couch, a sketch pad in his hand. "You couldn't sleep either?" she asked getting his attention and he snapped the book closed before she could see what he was drawing. With suspicious eyes she leaned on the back of the couch, putting her head next to his, looking at the book in his hand over his shoulder. "What were you working on?" she asked as she reached for the book, but he tucked it under his leg where she couldn't get it. She gasped exaggeratedly, "Was it something dirty?"

"A little." He answered, peaking her interest given her recent thoughts about him.

"Show me?" she asked.

He looked at her over his shoulder "No."

"Is it Caroline?" she asked.

He scoffed. "No."

"Please show me?" she asked with her best puppy dog eyes and he pulled the book out from under his leg and flipped to a finished picture. She wrapped her arms around him and held the book in front of him. He looked at the book as she took in the drawing of one of the photos he'd seen of her on her phone she realized that this was finished and not what he had been working on. So she flipped to the front of the book and found a sketch of her in the dress she wore to the homecoming dance. On the next page was just a picture of her face and shoulders, every detail was spot on. As she continued to flip through the book the pictures, that started off innocent, became more and more revealing until she came to the unfinished one at the end, a sketch of her and Klaus in her bed. He was nude sitting up on his knees with her in his lap, her long legs wrapped around him. His arms wrapped around her hid her breasts from view. Klaus noticed her breathing changed and he couldn't tell if she was pissed off or turned on. She closed the book and tossed it onto the coffee table then leaned further over the couch and slid one hand to hold the side of his neck and the other over his cheek, turning his head toward her. His eyes met hers a split second before she pressed her lips to his.

He instantly kissed her back, catching her bottom lip between his. Wanting a better angle he turned putting his back against the arm of the couch with is legs stretched across it then wrapped his arm around Katie's waist, easily lifted her over the low back of the couch, never breaking the kiss, as he laid her on top of him. She braced herself with her hands on the leather arm of the couch behind him, lost in his kiss and the feel of his hands untying her robe. She pulled back and watched his face as he pushed it down her shoulders revealing that she wasn't wearing a bra under her spaghetti strap tank top. He couldn't resist slipping his hands up her shoulders then over her chest and cupping her breasts in his hands. A hum let her lips and pleasure shot through her when he pinched her nipples over the fabric making him chuckle as he let go of one of her breasts and pulled her back down to kiss him.

"Oh bloody hell!" Rebekah's voice pulled them back down to reality and Katie tucked her face into Klaus' neck, too embarrassed to look at Rebekah. Klaus on the other hand glared daggers at her. "How many rooms are there in this house?"

"Go away, Rebekah." He told her aggravated.

"Gladly, get a room next time so I don't feel like stabbing my eyes out. Yeah?" She told him then turned and walked away.

When Katie heard Rebekah's stomping footsteps disappear upstairs she pulled her face out of Klaus' neck and looked him in the eyes. Deciding that she wasn't going to let Rebekah's interruption ruin her night she stood up and held her hand out to him. He took it and let her lead him to her room. "Are you sure about this?" he asked as he watched her shut the door.

"All I'm sure about anymore is that I have been nothing but miserable since Elijah left. And tonight, when I was feeling lost and aimlessly driving around because I didn't want to go home to my house that is filled with a thousand haunting memories, I ended up here." She slipped her hands up his chest and held the sides of his neck. "I no longer believe in love nor do I want it. I do however," she said as she grabbed one of his hands in both of hers and started kissing his fingertips, "want your sexy hands to touch every inch of my body…" She brushed her lips over his fingertips then kissed his pointer finger, slipped it into her mouth and looked him in the eyes as she slipped it out, "and for you to let me feel every inch of yours."

A heavy sigh left his parted lips as he smashed them into hers. A moan bubbled up from her throat when his tongue found hers. He grabbed her sides, picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him. As his lips attacked hers she wrapped her arms around his neck. A heavy breath left his lips as he whooshed her back, pressing her against the wall. A growl left his lips as he attacked her neck with kisses and nibbles pulling another moan from her lips.

When she pushed at the hem of his shirt he pulled away and looked into her eyes as he pulled it over his head and she did the same with her tank top. Desperate to have his lips back on her she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him to her catching his bottom lip between hers. When she lightly bit his lip he moaned and whooshed them over to the bed, grabbed her hands from around his neck and pinned them down next to her head. A mixture of kisses and rough nibbles were trailed all over her neck and chest before he finally let go of her hands to cup her breasts in his. She rolled them over and started undoing his belt, button and zipper.

As soon as she was done he rolled them back over losing his pants in the process then pulled off her shorts and her panties in one swift movement. Wanting to see what he had envisioned he sat up on his knees, running his hands down her thin sides over her curvy hips to grip her legs and wrap them back around him, admiring the sight before his eyes. Knowing what he wanted, she sat up. As she did he slid his big hands up her back until his palms were pressed to her shoulder blades.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and lightly ran her fingertips over his back making him sigh as he looked into her eyes and rested his forehead on hers. After a few seconds she noticed his gaze fall down to her chest and a smile spread over her lips. He looked back up at her with a smile of his own as he slid one of his hands around to her stomach then up pausing when his thumb and pointer finger outlined the under side of her breast. He tilted his head, brushing her nose with his before he pressed his lips to hers. A satisfied sigh slipped from his lips when she kissed along his jaw to his neck where she bit him without breaking the skin and his hand moved up, cupping her breast in his hand as he lightly pinched her nipple pulling a sigh from her.

She grabbed the sides of his neck as she kissed back to his lips. As his lips massaged hers his tongue found it's way into her mouth pulling a moan from her. Their hands explored each other as they made out. Eventually when they both needed more Klaus slid his hands down her back, grabbed her butt and picked her up. Knowing what he was about to do she pulled back and looked into his eyes as he slowly lowered her down on him. They both sighed in satisfaction then pressed their foreheads back together not breaking eye contact as he started moving her up and down. Eventually he laid her back and kissed her chest while one of her hands gripped his hair and the other gripped his back. "Klaus." His name rolling off her lips in a breathy moan nearly pushed him over the edge and he pulled away from her breast and looked her in the eye. Seeing the lust and pleasure in them let him know she was just as close as he was.

"Let go, Sweetheart." His whispered words were all it took to send both of them spiraling off into an intense state of pure pleasure. As they came down from their high, both still breathing hard, she tucked her face into his neck and kissed it. After a minute he rolled onto his side, sat up, grabbed the sheet from the foot of the bed and pulled it up over them. When he looped his arm around her and pulled her into his chest she laid her head on his shoulder and pressed her palms to his chest, content to cuddle in silence. But after ten minutes of silence he began to worry. "If you do not say something soon I'm going to assume you regret what just happened."

She pulled back and looked him in the eyes. "I don't regret it." she told him quietly with a shake of her head. "I'm just…still enjoying it." he gave her a curious look. "At any given moment of any day my mind is racing ninety to nothing and here recently my mind has been a very dark, self loathing place." He brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek, knowing what she was talking about all too well. "But in moments like this…my mind is quiet and calm. It may be weird, but I enjoy the calm of after just as much as the storm of during."

"You…are a very interesting woman." He told her as his eyes traveled her face. He called her interesting, but her mind suddenly went into over drive and replaced the word with a thousand different ones all muttered in her grandfather's hateful voice. She couldn't tell the voice that he was wrong this time. Damon, Tyler, Elijah now Klaus all within a years time? She was throwing herself around like a common whore. She frowned and dropped her eyes to his chest. To silence the voice and get her head elsewhere she started kissing his chest, pulling a sigh from him when she kissed his nipple then a chuckle from him when she playfully bit it. She decided then that she liked the sound of his deep relaxed laugh and pulled away to look into his eyes. He hooked his fingers under her chin and ran his thumb over the corner of her mouth then looked at her eyes.

She grabbed his hand and pressed their palms together taking in the size difference. Thinking about his slightly obsessive drawings she asked, "So, how long have you been fanaticizing about me?"

"Pretty much since you walked into that gym on senior prank night with a fire in your eyes and an I-don't-give-a-damn attitude." He answered. "Then seeing those pictures on your phone didn't help nor did the noises that floated down the hall to my room when you were with Elijah. I've got to admit, I'm a little jealous I didn't get those same wall shaking moans from you."

"I doubt you ever will." She answered remembering blood sharing with Elijah.

"I'm not sure if I should take offense or accept the challenge." He told her with a slight glare.

"That wasn't meant to be a blow to your very impressive sexual skills." She told him in an attempt to soothe his ego. "Our link tends to enhance certain things."

"Then maybe I should find a witch and have them link us." he told her as with a devious smile.

"Please for the love of god don't." she told him with an eye roll as she pushed his shoulder and threw her leg over him, sitting on his lower stomach. "Because of that link there have been times when I didn't know what was organic and what was magic and I told myself it was all real because I desperately wanted it to be. But I no longer want head over heels, whirlwind, short lived, magically enhanced love that consumes me."

"Then what do you want?" he asked looking her up and down.

"This." She fell forward bracing herself on her hands on each side of his head. "You. A real," she kissed his cheek, "raw," the side of his neck, "promise free," his collar bone, "lie free," the hollow of his neck, "expectation free," the center of his chest, "honest relationship." She bit his pec next to his nipple then pecked him on the lips and sat up. "Or friends with benefits, or whatever you want to call it." she answered then slipped her hands down his chest settling them on his sides as she looked at his face. "If that's okay with you of course."

"That is more than okay with me, Sweetheart." He told her as he hooked his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down to him, kissing her deeply and passionately. When the kiss broke he rolled over onto his side and propped his head up on his hand, looking at her. "You intrigue the hell out of me and you have from the moment you offered to take Jenna's place in the sacrifice. You were willing to die even though you had everything to live for…you weren't scared." He told her with a confused shake of his head "You have never been scared of me." He grabbed her thigh and pulled her leg up over his hips.

She slid her hand over his shoulder. "You've completely and utterly terrified me." she absentmindedly drew invisible swirls over his arm with her fingertips.

"I stabbed you in the back that night. How can you even stand to be in the same room with me?" he asked intrigued by her.

"I have an uncanny and very stupid, ability to over look the bad in people and only focus on the good." She answered with a shrug. "I've learned over the past year or so that it's a little too easy for me to turn a blind to the horrible things people do." She looked at her finger tips slipping lightly over his arm. "And if I've learned anything from tonight it's that I am drawn to you."

"And what good do you see in me that draws you in." He asked as he slipped his hand over her hip, to her fleshy rear.

She looked up at him with a frown. "I don't know what draws me too you…I don't think it's anything necessarily good or bad…" She paused, thinking about what she wanted to say. "But I know why I can't hate you." He gave her a look that asked her to keep talking. "When I look at you…I see an innocent version of you. He has been rejected, abused, hurt and thrown away far too many times and it's caused him to be wrapped in a thick cocoon of anger, distrust, paranoia and hatred." She told him and he blinked rapidly as if to hold back tears. "I see you…as mirror image of myself, but your side of the reflection has far more cracks, chips and complexities that I know I can not even begin to understand." She looked down at her hands on his chest for a moment then back into his blue eyes. "So if I hate you…it feels like I hate myself and who I could vary easily become." He just stared at her with wide eyes and when several long seconds passed she was sure she had gone too far…said too much and pissed him off. But he surprised her and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that quickly deepened and turned passionate.

**A/N:** Okay, so that happened. I didn't intend on them getting together, it just kind of happened when I was writing and I can't make myself write it any differently. So if you don't like Klaus or the possibility of a KlausxKatiexElijah love triangle…I'm sorry. It may not happen because even I don't know what I have planned for this story. Every time I sit down and actually plan out the future of this story it ends up being something completely different when I start typing. It doesn't help that I stumbled across a scene from Ben Hur with Joseph Morgan and Lucía Jiménez that inspired the sex scene here.

**A bit of warning:** I've gotten the next two chapters written and chapter after next is going to be stepping away from everything going on in mystic falls and focusing on Katie, Klaus and Elijah. Mentions of what going on with the hunter and the five and all of that are going to be made, but we won't be seeing it yet. I'm getting creative and possibly ripping off the writers of the house of night series a little bit, but hey, this is a fanfiction I'm allowed lol. Hope you will all keep hanging in there with me and enjoying my work. Than you and have good day.


	35. Chapter 35

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 35**

The next morning she woke up to find Klaus still sound asleep on his side, his lips parted just a little as soft snores filled the air. Seeing him so relaxed brought a smile to her lips as she turned onto her back, reached over to the nightstand and grabbed her cell phone to see that it was only five thirty in the morning. It was odd for her to wake up this early, but considering she woke up happy, she couldn't be mad about it. Dance committee clean up didn't start until eight. So she set an alarm for six thirty, put it back on the night stand then rolled over and tucked herself into Klaus's chest. He wrapped his arm around her waist waking a little, but his arm soon relaxed as he drifted back off.

As her mind started to wander, her hand found the infinity sign hanging around her neck. As she touched it her mind went back to the night Elijah left. _"I will always love you. That is why I'm letting you go."_ His words echoed through her head.

Klaus woke up a few minutes later and saw her staring off into space as her manicured fingers played with the necklace. He hated that she was thinking about Elijah while lying in bed with him, but he had to keep reminding himself that regardless of last night. Katie wasn't his to have, but she would find her way to him in time, he was sure of it. "I know you said you no longer believe in love." Klaus's voice pulled her out of her thoughts that she had been so lost in that she hadn't realized he had woken up. "But you still love him, don't you?"

"Love mean's nothing without commitment." She sat up and slipped from the bed. "He let me go…and if I'm ever going to be able to let myself be happy," she pulled the drawer of her vanity open and took the teal jewelry box out, popped it open then set it on the vanity, "I have to do the same." She reached behind her neck, undid the clasp then put it in the box and shut the lid. He watched her put the box in the drawer and close it before she turned back to him. "And while I'm perfectly content with whatever you want to call what we are," she walked back over to the bed and crawled across it, straddling his sheet covered hips, "I want you to know that I don't want to tie you down. I know you have a thing for Caroline even though she's with Tyler. If you decide she is who you want to pursue then I'll step aside, no hard feelings."

"You asked me at the ball who I would choose if I had too." Before he could say anything else she covered his mouth with her hand.

"Don't." She moved her hand and he gave her a slow blink. "That was just my own insecurities manifesting in a competitive way. I don't need nor do I want to know who you'd choose. Although if I were you I'd choose Caroline she's a pretty amazing person and not nearly as screwed up as I am."

He realized then that her heart was still wrapped with hard stone. She wanted him…she was letting him chip away at her, but he was no where near the soft spot that he wanted so badly to be let into. She still feared the hurt that love could bring and if he was being honest, he was pretty damn scared of love too. So he too was perfectly content with what they had going on right now. "If you say so." he hooked his hand around the back of her neck, pulled her down to his lips then sat up on his knees and set his hands on her outer thighs as she situated herself in his lap. He kissed his way to her neck and bit it with a playful growl. She laughed and he pulled back to look at her smiling face, loving that a small spark was back in her eyes and he had put it there.

"I like it when you growl like that." She admitted as she bit her lip still smiling.

"Yeah?" he asked and she nodded. "Well I like it…" he growled and bit her shoulder and she laughed again, "when you laugh like that." He told her with a smile of his own. "What else do you like?"

"Fishing for compliments are we?" she asked with a quirk of her brow. He just shrugged. "I like your laugh too. Not your condescending, alpha male with something to prove, laugh, but the one I get from you." She answered. "For some reason I find your hands incredibly sexy. I like the fact that you're clearly a fan of my chest and you have no problem showing it." Just to drive her point home he slid his hand around from where he had been holding onto her back, up her stomach to grab her breast and twist her nipple between his thumb and pointer finger pulling a sigh and a small whimper of pleasure from her. "And I like it when you do that."

"I like the noises and face you make when I do that." He told her as he looked at the lust his action brought to her eyes. It had been a long time since he'd enjoyed being with a woman as much as he enjoyed being with and playing with Katie. He leaned back, placing his fists on the bed behind him to prop himself up as his eyes drank her in. She balanced herself on his lap as she brushed her finger tips over his chest and down over his hips her fingers following the v of his muscles that led further down. She usually made it a point not to look at a guy's package when hanging out naked in bed with him, but her gaze slipped and her cheeks reddened, which was exactly why she usually tried not to look. "I like that you can be extremely seductive yet you still blush like that."

"I like the way you say seductive." She threw out as she looked back up at his face enjoying their back and forth complementary banter. "and succeed."

"I like the way you moan my name when you're close." He told her with a smirk.

"I like how you know when I close without me saying so." She told him.

"I like that you haven't stopped touching me since we came into this room." he answered without thinking, loving that he didn't have to over think anything right now.

"Well I like touching you." she told him with a smile as she slipped her fingertips down his chest.

"And I like kissing you." he told her as he looked down at her hands on him then back up at her eyes.

"Then kiss me, Big Bad Wolf." She told him with a seductive whisper.

"You…" he put all his weight on one first, reached up and gently cupped her chin in his hand and looked at her with lustful eyes, "are the only one allowed to call me that."

"You don't like it?" she asked considering that every time she had called him that in the past he seemed to. Then she remembered that Mikael had called him that and her face turned to one of realization. "Shit."

"It's fine." He assured her in his pep-up voice, but she didn't pick her eyes up from where they had fallen to look at his stomach. "You called me that before he did and you say like a compliment, instead of an insult." She looked up at him through her lashes. "Say it again."

"Big…Bad…Wo-" he cut her off with a kiss and fell back taking her down with him as she laughed into him.

They were still playing around, lost in each other and tangled in the sheets when her alarm started ringing letting her know she needed to start getting ready to leave. With a sigh she untangled herself from the sheet and him and rolled over putting her back to him and grabbed her phone shutting off the alarm. "I selfishly do not want to leave this bed."

"Then don't." he told her as he pulled her back into him and started kissing her shoulders and back.

"I have to. I'm part of the dance committee and the gym and cafeteria are a mess." She told him as she rolled over to face him. "I'm not going to let Caroline, Tyler, Matt and Rebekah do it all themselves." She slipped from the bed and walked over to the dresser where she grabbed a set of under things, put them on the dresser then went to her wardrobe and opened it up. She grabbed a yellow racer back tank top and a black leather jacket then pulled the drawer out and grabbed a pair of distressed dark wash jeans. "I'm gonna go shower. If I show up reeking of sex Caroline will most likely pry until she finds out who I slept with, judge me nine ways to Sunday then tell Tyler who will tell Matt who will tell Elena and so on and so on." She told him as she grabbed the satin robe and shrugged it on.

"Do you not want people to know you're sleeping with me?" he asked with an enthused smirk.

"I don't care if they find out I'm just not going to be the first one to start up the rumor mill." She told him as she grabbed her clean clothes.

He sat up. "Am I invited to join you for your shower?" he asked.

She was going to tell him no, that she could use the time to clear her head, but then he stood from the bed, the sheet that had been covering him since she got out of bed slipping from his hips and a blush colored her cheeks making him smile. After a second she jerked her eyes up to his and swallowed with a gulp. "Uh huh." Klaus laughed at her reaction and scooped her up with a growl making her yelp then burst out laughing as she wrapped her arms around him.

* * *

After their shower they went to their rooms to get dressed. She was in the kitchen putting a blood bag in a coffee tumbler when Klaus found her, even wearing jeans and a maroon Henley she found him attractive. "What would you say if I asked you to leave town with me?" he asked as he grabbed a bag of blood out of the icebox.

"I would say give me until Monday when I can talk to the counselor about home school and then I'm all yours." she said then put the lid on the tumbler and took a drink.

"Do you want your things at your house packed up or just what you have here?" he asked making her realize it wasn't just a hypothetical question.

"Oh, you're being serious." He took a drink of blood then smiled a closed lipped smile and lifted his brows. "What I have here will be more than enough." She looked at the clock on her phone.

"Then Tyler's not going to make it to homecoming clean up." He told her and she gave him a questioning look. "He will helping pack our things." He watched her look down at her phone to see that she still had about twenty minutes before she had to leave the house. "I've go to say, I'm surprised you've agreed to come with me."

"Why? I hate this town." She asked as she pulled herself up to sit in the corner of the cabinets. "I'm tired of this place and everyone in it." she rethought what she said. "Well, except Rebekah and Caroline, but that's what phone's and video chat are for."

He walked over to stand between her knees and took a drink from his glass then set it on the bar next to her. "Where do you want to go?" he placed his hands on her sides.

She moved her arms to rest on his neck, still holding her coffee tumbler in her hand. "Any where in the u.s." she told him then took a drink from the tumbler. "I don't want to go out of the country until after graduation, which I want to come back here for. All this life I've anticipated walking across that stage in an ugly maroon gown and tossing my hat alongside the people I grew up with." He smiled at her, loving that she didn't just say, you choose or I don't care then proceed to shoot down every idea he had like a stereotypical woman. "So where are we going?" she asked taking a drink.

"I don't know, let me think about it." he answered already thinking about what he wanted to show her first.

"Okay." She looked at the clock on the wall. "I have to go." He stepped back and let her hop down off the bar then enjoyed watching her walk away.

* * *

Katie found Rebekah in the cafeteria picking up trash that was left on the tables. "How was your night?" Rebekah asked as Katie grabbed a small blue recycling bin and started picking up trash. When Katie didn't answer Rebekah looked up at her and smirked.

"Isn't that a bit of a weird question for you to ask when it was your brother I spent the night with?" Katie asked with a cock of her head.

"That doesn't touch the tip of the weird iceberg." Rebekah told her. "When you spend as much time around your siblings as I have you learn to deal with hearing an seeing things you would prefer not to." Katie just shook her head and smiled. "If I'm being honest I knew the two of you were making out before I interrupted." Katie gave her a confused frown. "I know how easy it is for him to charm a woman into his bed and I know you still miss Elijah. I was giving you the opportunity to say no if it wasn't something you really wanted."

"Huh." Katie huffed. Rebekah really wasn't as much of a bitch as she came off to be. "Thanks." Rebekah gave her a look that told her to answer her question. "Fine, my night was freaking amazing and for the first time in almost a month I don't feel like it took every ounce of will power I had just to get out of bed in the morning." She told her letting a smile slip. She wanted to tell her that she and Klaus were planning on leaving together, but she figured it would be best if she let Klaus tell her.

"Getting laid does tend to put some pep in your step." Rebekah told her as she picked up trash off the table.

"Who got laid?" Caroline asked as she walked into the room and looked at the two girls. "Please tell me you didn't sleep with Damon again." Caroline asked Rebekah who shook her head no and pointed at Katie who wasn't looking at them and instead focused on picking up trash. But she looked up when Caroline threw a plastic champagne glass at her. "_You_ slept with Damon?" Caroline asked in disbelief.

"What? No!" Katie told her as she picked up the champagne glass. "No one slept with Damon. Again."

"Then who did you sleep with?" Caroline asked.

"Klaus." Rebekah answered innocently.

"Rebekah!" Katie yelled and threw the glass at her.

"You and Klaus?" Caroline asked with wide eyes.

"I'm gonna to go get started on the gym." Katie walked away not feeling like dealing with either of the girls. While Caroline and Rebekah worked on the cafeteria Katie started taking the lights down in the gym. She was almost done when someone whooshed up behind her and broke her neck.

When she woke up and took a breath through her mouth she instantly started coughing from the vervain she breathed in. The cloth in her mouth that was tied around her head had been soaked in it. Not only did it burn her cheek and ears, but it weakened her little by little as she involuntarily breathed it in. She still took vervain every morning, but her tolerance wasn't high enough to keep it from affecting her at all. For right now it just protected her from compulsion. She tried to lift her hands only to realize that they were pinned to the desk with pencils, stabbed through her palms.

Her eyes landed on Alaric, leaning against his desk and she realized by the glare he was giving her that he had managed to turn during the night. Esther had succeeded in creating her ultimate weapon. She looked over to see Caroline, gagged with pencils in her hands, in the desk to her right.

"Listen closely. I'm at the school." Alaric told whoever he was on the phone with. "I have Caroline and Katie and if you want to keep them alive, I need you to get into your car and come down here right away." Alaric looked up at the two vampires in staked to desks. "If you tell anyone, I will kill them." He hung up the phone and smirked an evil smirk at them then sat down at his desk, propped his feet up on it and started twirling a stake, that looked almost like it was coated in a spider web of silver, in his hand.

While Caroline cried and whimpered from the painful pencils in her hands and the vervain that she inhaled with every breath, Katie sat quietly. The only indication that she was in any pain were the tears that slipped down her cheeks. After a long silence Elena appeared in the doorway of the class room. "Let them go, Alaric."

Alaric waved his hand at them. "Free them yourself."

Elena walked over to Caroline, kneeled down and started to pull the pencil out of Caroline's hand, but Alaric hit it, pushing it back in making Caroline scream out. "You said you would let her go!" Elena yelled as she stood and turned to Alaric.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Elena? Stop trusting vampires." Alaric yelled back. "Sit." He pointed at the desk next to Caroline and Elena sat down. Katie kept her eyes locked on the black board as Alaric walked around her, took the gag out of her mouth and dipped it in a beaker of vervain. Knowing it would be pointless to fight she opened her mouth and bit the strip of fabric, making him think he tied it super tight around her head when really she had a little slack. The sound of the vervain singeing her skin filled the air and a small grunt bubbled up out of her throat as she squeezed her eyes shut, tears slipping down her cheeks as her hands gripped the edge of the desk. She knew it wasn't Alaric hurting her, it was the darkness that his ring and Esther had brought out of him, but she hated him at the moment.

Alaric did the same to Caroline, who started begging him to stop the second the fabric was removed from her mouth. "Alaric stop." Elena told him as she stood up, but Alaric shoved her into the desk and tied the fabric back around Caroline's mouth making her cry out. "Why are you doing this?" Elena asked him. Katie started chewing on the gag in her mouth, grinding her teeth back and forth over it, trying as quietly could, to break it. As she chewed on it, squeezing the fabric between her teeth, vervain filled her mouth and if she spat it our Alaric would know she was up to something. So she forced herself to swallow it and keep grinding her teeth despite her throat burning from the vervain.

"To make it easier on you when you put them out of their misery." Alaric answered Elena as he picked up the silver coated stake.

"What? No." Elena told him.

"Isn't this what you wanted Elena? For me to teach you how to kill a vampire?" he asked then motioned the stake to Katie. "Well, here's a vampire, Elena. One that I know you hate, so it should really be no problem." He told her then held the stake out to her. "Kill her."

"I don't hate her." Elena told him. "This isn't what I want."

Katie didn't look at any of them. "Of course it is. All those hours you spent training, getting stronger. You could be a hunter Elena, but you've never actually staked a vampire through the heart."

"No." Elena told him and he started pacing. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you need me." Alaric told her. "Because you're an eighteen year old girl without parents or guidance or any sense of right and wrong anymore." He told her still pacing.

"Look at you. How is this right?" Elena asked with a motion at Caroline and Katie.

"They are murders." He stopped and pointed at Caroline. "She told me she killed someone and liked it." he took a step back and pointed the stake at Katie. "And we all know that Katie enjoyed killing her grandfather. Not once has she shown the least bit of guilt for taking a human life. How is that right?" he asked then walked over to stand across from Elena. "See, Elena, your parents led the council. It was their life's mission to keep this town safe. They weren't dead six months before you undid it all."

Katie kept sawing her teeth over the cloth, her tongue, inner cheek and throat raw and bleeding. "You don't know anything about them." Elena told him as Katie still chewed on the cloth.

Alaric walked around Katie, leaned down putting his lips by her ear. "I can hear you chewing on your gag and I promise if you try anything I will have no problem ripping your heart out." Not realizing just how long she had been chewing on the gag he grabbed it and jerked back on it in an attempt to hurt her. Instead it snapped it at the weak point she had created. It surprised him enough that she had time to jerk her hands up off the pencils, break them off the desk and stab him in each side of his neck, embedding them into his neck so deep the erasers were even with his skin. Elena grabbed the beaker of vervain and broke it across his face. While he was down, screaming while clutching his burning face, Katie pulled the pencils out of Caroline's hands and Elena took the gag off of her. "Get help." Elena told them. Katie wrapped her arm around Caroline's waist and whooshed them out of the room.

They paused and looked back to see if Elena made it out, but they didn't see her. A hand went around their mouths and someone pulled them around the corner. Caroline tried to scream, but Katie's tongue, throat and the inside of her mouth was still too sore to attempt to scream. Whoever it was shushed them. "It's okay, it's okay. It's me. Your both safe." Klaus whispered then dropped his hand and they turned to look at him. "We'll save Elena." He told Caroline. "You go straight home. You stay in side, you understand?"

She nodded at him. "Thank you." Caroline told him quietly.

He gave her a nod. "Go. Now." Caroline whooshed off leaving Katie with Klaus. He grabbed her hand and whooshed her outside a few feet away from the school. "What did he do to you?" he asked setting his hand on the side of her neck.

"Noth-" she turned away from him and coughed up blood then spit it out onto the concrete feeling her throat start to heal. "Nothing I couldn't handle." She rasped as she turned back to look at him.

"That's not what I asked." He pointed out as his eyes took in the red healing marks on her face that went from the corers of her mouth to her ears.

"He staked my hands to the desk with pencils and gagged me with a cloth soaked in vervain." She answered feeling weak from the vervain in her system. "He did the same to Caroline."

"They why do you seem worse off than Caroline?" he asked.

"I swallowed a lot of vervain in the process of chewing through the gag. She just breathed it in and got some on her face." she admitted.

Klaus sighed. "I wanted you to help us, but you're in no condition to take on Alaric and I can't give you my blood in case it interferes with the effectiveness of Bonnie's blood that we all drank." She could see him contemplating what to do. "If I ask you to go to Caroline's where it's safe and stay there till I say otherwise, will you?"

"Yeah." She nodded then grabbed his chin in her hand like he did to her so often. "Watch your back in there."

He gave her a quick kiss. "Go."

* * *

They were sitting in Caroline's living room both watching but not really paying attention to Say Yes To The Dress when Caroline's phone started ringing and she answered it with lightening speed. "We didn't take down Alaric, but I did use the spell on Klaus." Bonnie told her and Katie felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach. "I stopped his heart. He's desiccated just like Mikael was. Damon and Stefan are taking him somewhere to hide him from Alaric."

"Okay." Caroline said looking at Katie with wide, sorry eyes.

"Okay?" Bonnie asked with a happy laugh. "I just took down Klaus. You could sound a little happier." Caroline couldn't be happy when Katie had been hurt yet again.

"I'm happy, Bonnie, it's just been a long day." Caroline told her as she watched Katie take a deep breath and stand from the couch and disappear into Caroline's room.

After hanging up with Bonnie, Caroline went to Katie and found her staring out of the window with her arms crossed, a flat face and a distant look in her eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Do you know how many times I have thought about running away from this town?" Katie asked not really answering the question.

"Probably a lot. Especially here recently." Caroline answered as she walked over to her bed and sat down.

"We were going to leave town together. He was going to get me out of this town that has done nothing but strangle the life out of me. He made me happy." Katie explained, needing to talk to someone and Caroline was all she had right now. "Every time I find happiness something happens and I lose it." Katie still looked out the window instead of at Caroline.

"I know your sad, but-" Caroline started.

"That's the thing, Care…" Katie cut her off with a shake of her head. "I'm not sad…I'm tired. So tired, that I can't even feel sad about Klaus. I don't fell anything really, I'm just…numb. Like getting a tattoo. It hurts at first, but eventually after so many stabs, you can't even feel it."

"And that's completely understandable given everything you have been though." Caroline told her with tears in her eyes. "I wish I could have done a better job of being there for you, but it wasn't just Elena keeping me and Bonnie from you. I mean, yeah she was in the wrong, she started it, but you've always pushed us away when things get hard." Katie started picking at her cuticles still looking out the window. "When your parent's died…or left, or whatever, you didn't talk to any of us for like a year."

"I think I blacked that out of my memory." Katie told her honestly as she looked at Caroline.

"Well I didn't. You…_all_ off us need to stop pushing each other away and stick together like friends are supposed to." Caroline was at her peak when she was giving people lectures. "If you are not ready to forgive Elena and Bonnie any time soon I will completely understand, but please do me a favor and forgive me and stop pushing me away. We learned to ride bikes together, we turned together and we were tortured together today and I will not stop being your friend even when you tell me to. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Caroline, I understand you and I forgive you." Katie told her as the smallest of smiles pulled at the corner of her mouth, but it looked half assed. "Just…do me a favor and don't tell any one about me and Klaus?"

"Promise." Caroline told her and held out her pinky. Katie shook her head and hooked her pinky through Caroline's then dropped her hand. "So do you love him?" Caroline asked being intrusive Caroline.

"Honestly?" Katie asked then shrugged up her shoulders. "I don't have a freaking clue what love is anymore."

Before Caroline could ask another question her phone started ringing.

It was Jeremy calling to let her know that Elena had passed out and he brought her to the hospital. But now he needed help getting her out of the hospital before Alaric or an original came after her. So Katie and Caroline got into Caroline's car and headed to the hospital where they met up with Matt and Tyler and they got Elena out of the hospital.

* * *

"Couch." Caroline barked at Elena as they all walked into Elena's house.

"I'm fine. I just want something to eat first." Elena assured the smothering Caroline who gave Katie a look.

"How is it that you can boss people around with a single look?" Katie asked Caroline as she headed towards the kitchen.

"Cause I've got skills." Caroline told her making Katie shake her head. "You, couch." Katie heard Caroline bark at Elena again before Katie disappeared into the kitchen.

She had just finished putting together a sandwich when Caroline came into the kitchen. "Tyler and I have to go, our moms need to talk to us, they said it's urgent. Are you and Matt okay to keep an eye on Elena until Stefan gets here?"

"Yeah, of course, go." Katie told her so she headed out.

"She's asleep." Matt announced as he passed Caroline on his way into the kitchen.

"Then I will stick this in the icebox for later." Katie sighed and put the sandwich in the fridge.

"For what it's worth I think what Elijah did to you sucks." Matt told her honestly.

"How do you even know about that?" she asked with a shake of her head.

"Girls talk." He told her with an amused smirk.

Katie sighed and shook her head. "I'm going to go find something to keep myself busy, laundry or anything. Holler if an original or a history teacher turned vampire shows up." She told him and he nodded as she started to leave the kitchen, but stopped and turned back "And Matt…"

"Yeah?" he asked looking up at her from the bar.

"Thanks." He just gave her a nod.

She was painting what used to be Jenna and Alaric's room out of the need to do something when she heard Stefan come in. Not wanting to see him she kept painting.

After finishing a wall she decided to go down stairs and check on things and she was halfway down the stairs when an all too familiar feeling in the pit of her stomach made her stop and the door bell rang. Elena happened to be walking by and grabbed the door knob. "Elena don't-" but before she could finish the sentence Elena pulled the door open revealing Elijah on the other side "open that." she finished with a sigh. He looked at Elena before his eyes found Katie still standing on the stairs. "I swear…I'm stuck in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events." she grumbled breaking eye contact with him. "I need booze." She headed to the kitchen where Stefan was chopping something and Matt was setting out plates on the dining table. "Elijah alert." She told them as she grabbed a bottle of tequila, a shot glass and a salt shaker. While Stefan and Matt went to the door Katie set down at the table, poured a shot then licked her hand between her thumb and forefinger and shook some salt onto the wet spot.

Elijah came in and sat down at the table and Elena sat down a few seats away from him. Katie didn't look at him as she licked the salt off her hand then threw back the shot. Needing to get away from Elijah she grabbed the salt shaker and bottle and started to leave the room. "You should probably stay here." Stefan told her and she stopped. "We might need your help."

"I can listen from another room and shout if I have something to add." She told him then went into the living room and sat down on the couch with her back facing the dining room.

Elena called Damon and put him on speaker phone. "All we need is to take that stake away from him." Elijah started talking. "Once he's been disarmed and the weapon's in my possession my family will scatter to the ends of the earth. And Alaric…will follow us."

"And you'll just…run?" Stefan asked and Katie heard someone pull a chair out and sit down.

"We've done it before." Elijah answered.

"And it's what he's best at." Katie chipped in without meaning to.

She heard a chair move and footsteps head her way as Elijah kept talking. "Klaus and Rebekah spent the better part of a thousand years evading my father." Stefan took the bottle of Tequila out of her hand and replaced it with a bottle of water. Katie gave him a sneer, but uncapped the water knowing she was being immature and now wasn't the time. "What's another half century while Elena's able to live out the rest of her natural life?"

Katie downed the bottle of water then went into the kitchen and grabbed another one out of the fridge. "We finally stopped him, Elijah. After everything he's done to us I can't just let you bring him back." Elena told Elijah who glanced at Katie as she pulled herself up to sit in the corner of the kitchen cabinets.

"I give you my word, Elena." He sat up straighter in the chair. "I will not revive Klaus within yours, nor even within your children's lifetimes." Elena just stared at him and he fidgeted with the place setting in front of him. "Perhaps it'll finally teach him some manners." He didn't miss when Katie's nostrils flared and she bit her lips closed to keep herself quiet.

"Why should she trust you?" Matt asked as he walked over to the end of the table and put his hands on the back of the chair. "All you've done is screw her over."

"And for that, I am deeply ashamed." Elijah told him then looked at Katie who dropped her eyes to the floor and started picking at her cuticles. "But know this. Elena could have been dead the instant I walked through that door tonight. So, Elena, I leave it to you to make the decision whether to trust me or not."

"Not!" Damon said over the phone. "Hello! Did that concussion give you brain damage? His lunatic siblings will kill you the first chance they get."

"Rebekah and Kol will honor the terms." Elijah told him then looked at Elena. "If you return Klaus' body to us Elena will come to no harm." Elena and Stefan looked at each other. "Do we have a deal?"

"No!" Damon yelled. "No, no, no, no. Did I mention, no!" Katie couldn't help smirking at him.

Stefan sighed and shook his head. "Elena, it's up to you."

"Oh, come on!" Damon yelled.

"Why do you want Klaus' body?" Elena asked ignoring Damon.

"He's my brother." Elijah answered with a shrug. "We remain together."

Elena looked down in thought then over at Katie. "Don't look at me." Katie told her with her hands held up. "We all know my judgment sucks when it comes to him."

Elena sighed then looked at Elijah. "We have a deal."

After that they started working out a plan. Jeremy would tell Alaric a false location and lure Alaric out into the woods where Elijah, Katie, Stefan, Jeremy and Caroline would disarm him then run.

Most of them whooshed to the location, but Jeremy and Stefan drove. Katie was leaning against a tree, waiting for Alaric to show up when Elijah walked over and leaned against the tree next to her. "Where is your necklace?" he asked the first thing that popped into his head and she didn't answer him. "So you're just going to ignore me?" Stefan, Caroline and Jeremy moved away from them, giving them space.

She thought about telling him she destroyed it in a food processor or threw it into Wickery Falls, but she just didn't have it in her to fight with him. "Go away." He walked around her and looked into her eyes. The sadness in his dark browns managed to strike a tightly wound cord and when he tried to cup her cheek in his hand it snapped. She knocked it away with lightening speed and back handed him across the face. He kept his head turned as she walked around him and over to Caroline.

"_You okay?_" Caroline mouthed at her and Katie shook her head no and shrugged.

* * *

They were still waiting for Alaric to show up when Stefan got a call from Damon. "Bad news brother." Katie heard Damon say, eavesdropping on them. "Alaric staked Klaus. He's dead." Katie's heart fell to the pit of her stomach and a lump formed in her throat.

"I feel okay." Stefan told him. "Do you feel anything?"

"No." Damon answered.

"It took Sage about an hour before she got sick." Stefan pointed out.

"Yeah, or Klaus was lying about being the sire of our bloodline." Damon countered.

"Well, if he wasn't lying…an hour's not enough time to get you all the way back to Mystic Falls."

Katie stopped listening, knowing that Klaus wouldn't lie to her, and stumbled back into the tree behind her. Elijah had been keeping an eye on and her saw her shock. He and Caroline whooshed over. "What happened?" he asked.

Stefan didn't answer right away. "Stefan?" Caroline asked worried.

"Klaus is dead." He told them with watery eyes.

"Tyler." Caroline sighed and whooshed away.

Elijah looked at Katie. She tried to walk away, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her into him.

While he hugged her and a few tears slipped down his cheeks, she just stood there not hugging him back or crying for the life she was about to lose. She literally felt nothing not even his arms around her or the wind that blew her hair.

Stefan and Jeremy left to be home when Matt brought Elena back home from his and Jeremy's stupid secret get-Elena-away-from-vampires mission while Elijah waited for Rebekah and Katie stared off into space, leaning against a tree again. Elijah's phone chimed and he looked down at it then back at Katie with a confused look. "Tyler Lockwood is dead, yet you are still alive." She lifted her eye up to look at him. "I don't understand how you are not dead." Katie just shrugged.

After a while they heard the whoosh of wind and Elijah turned from the silent Katie to see a teary eyed Rebekah. "He's gone, Elijah. There was nothing I could do to stop it." Elijah walked over to her and hugged her.

"Tyler Lockwood is dead, but the rest survived. You said that Niklaus turned their bloodline." Elijah told her.

"I thought he did." Rebekah told him.

"It wasn't me. It wasn't Kol." Elijah stated.

"It wasn't me, Elijah. It was Niklaus, I'm sure of it." Rebekah insisted.

"Then how are they still alive?" Elijah asked.

Rebekah looked over Elijah's shoulder at Katie who didn't seem to be on the same planet as them. "Why is she so quiet?"

Elijah turned and looked at her with narrowed eyes. "I think she is in shock." Katie who hadn't been listening to them, closed her eyes and pushed it all back, every heart ache, every bit of anger, everything that weighed on her, until something in her mind clicked and everything floated away. "No." Elijah sighed feeling what just happened through the shift in her energy that always flowed through their link that he was thankful didn't just break.

"No?" Rebekah asked, confused. "No what?"

Elijah just watched as Katie opened her eyes, her pupils dilated then shrunk to the size of a needle point then normalized as she breathed out a sigh of relief. "She just flipped the switch."


	36. Chapter 36

**A/N:** I suck at writing an emotionless character…just saying.

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 36**

The bass in the club beat loud as upbeat music played over the speakers. Sweaty body's danced to beat on the dance floor while neon lights flashed. People stood on a balcony up above where the bar was located drinking and talking while watching the people dancing down below. Katie danced in the middle of the dance floor with a guy in front of her and a guy behind her both with their hands all over her while they bumped and grind against her. Their drunk gazes on her bouncing chest, scantly clad in the black sequined mini dress with a plunging draped neckline and a halter strap of rhinestones.

When the song was over and a less upbeat song came on she turned to the guy behind her and slipped her finger under his chin beckoning him to her. "Come with me pretty boy." He followed her out of the club and into the sketchy alleyway like a lost puppy. She reveled in the fact that she could lure men out without even having to compel them. The lust in the guys pretty blue eyes made her smile and when they got to the middle of the alley she turned to him, grabbed his shirt in her fist, pulled his face close to hers, the tips of their noses touching as the blood rushed to her eyes. His lustful eyes turned fearful in the blink of an eye. The guy stumbled back, tripping over an overturned trash can before he turned and ran. Katie let him run a little before she whooshed in front of him and he stumbled back, falling on his ass that he scooted on scrambling away from her.

Tired of playing with her food, she grabbed him up by his jacket, shoved his head to the side then sank her teeth in to him. In thirty seconds he was tapped out and she pushed him to the side watching him fall to the ground as she licked the blood from her lips. She was staring at him when she heard a gasp behind her and turned to see a woman standing in the opening of the alley with her hand over her mouth. Katie whooshed over, grabbed her before she could run away, slammed her into the brick wall and looked her in the eyes. "If you are questioned by anyone, you tell them you saw a man wearing obnoxiously distressed jeans, one of those douchy affliction t-shirts and cowboy boots. He stabbed him in the neck with something you didn't get a good look at. Understand?" the woman nodded. "Now forget you ever saw me."

The tapping of her thigh high stiletto boots on the concrete filled the air as she walked back into the club. Done with dancing for the time being she went up to the bar on the second floor where it was a little quieter and ordered a drink. The bartender set down a napkin then a martini glass. She was about to grab the toothpick and eat the olives, but a hand came from behind her and grabbed them first. She didn't have to guess who it was…she could feel him. She let out a sharp whistle and snapped her fingers to get the bartender to look at her and she crooked at finger at him. He walked over to her and she looked him in the eyes not having to speak to compel him. Elijah sat down on the stool next to her and ate one of the olives. "Hi handsome." She told him with a smirk as she looked at him across her shoulder. The bartender stuck a new toothpick of olives in her drink then walked away.

Elijah whipped the handkerchief out of his suit pocket and held it out to her. "Your dinner is still on your lips."

She pushed his hand down and leaned into him, her lips close to his ear. "You want a taste?" she pulled back looking him in his brown eyes. Eyes that once made her heart skip a beat, but now did absolutely nothing for her. She could still feel him through their link, but it wasn't like it was before. All feelings of longing and love were gone.

He pursed his lips and leaned back. "Wipe your mouth before someone notices."

Instead of taking the handkerchief she licked her pointer finger, wiped her lips then sucked the blood off it. "Bet Damon would have kissed me." she popped off making Elijah look away from her. "I would ask how you found me, but apparently even though I've flipped the switch, I still have a soul and that pesky little link still exists." She told him taking in his un-amused face. "And I can't figure out if I find you so mouthwateringly handsome because I actually think it or if it's the link."

He narrowed his eyes "Did you want it to be severed?"

"Yep." She answered without hesitation.

"Why?" he asked studying her.

"Because I no longer want you." She answered then looked away from him and took a drink.

"We will not discus this right now." he told her.

"Hey you asked." She said with a shrug then threw back what was left of her drink and pushed the glass away.

"May I propose deal?" he asked looking at her like he was in deep thought.

"You can propose it, but I doubt I'll take you up on it."

"I find a witch that is able to remove our link. You turn your humanity back on." He said as he propped his elbow on up the bar and watched her take the olives out of the empty glass and bite one off the tooth pick.

"You are vastly overestimating that link and whatever power you think you and it have over me." she hopped down off the stool. "No deal." She started walking away.

"What about Niklaus?" he asked and she stopped and turned back to him. "Did he have power over you?"

"Why do you ask?" she asked curiously.

"I know he meant something to you. You felt the loss of him so deeply you flipped your switch." He told her with narrowed eyes.

She walked back over to him and looked him in the eyes. "Goodbye, Elijah." She walked away and he let her.

* * *

Klaus walked into a small bar. He'd followed Katie's trail of dead bodies here and it took no time to spot her sitting at the back of the room with her teeth sank into a woman's neck. No one was paying it any attention. So he assumed she had the whole place compelled.

He walked over and pulled the woman away from Katie and tossed her to the side to land on the couch. "Klaus?" Katie asked in confusion.

"In the flesh." He told her with a cheeky smile.

"Huh, that explains some things." She said as she stood up and tried to walk around him, but be grabbed her arm. She looked down at his hand on her then back up at his glaring eyes.

"This isn't you, love." He told her and a smile formed on her face making him give her an interested look.

"Sure it is." She argued as she took her arm from his, walked over to a guy sitting at the bar and started to bite him, but Klaus whooshed between them. "What are you doing?" she asked with a bored look.

"Telling you that I am alive and to go home and stop this foolishness." He pointed out.

"We screw a few times, you somehow come back from the dead and you think you can tell me what to do?" she asked with a cock of her head.

He grabbed her chin in his hand and looked into her eyes. "It was more than that and you know it."

"Maybe it was, but guess what?" she whooshed around Klaus and sank her teeth into the guys neck then tossed him aside. "I no longer care." She wiped her mouth as she walked away.

* * *

Klaus and Elijah stood outside a bar on the Virginia coast that Katie was in, leaning against Elijah's car. "So what's the plan?" Klaus asked not liking that they were about to ambush her. But it had been almost two weeks since she flipped her switch and no one had been able to get through to her.

"Whatever it takes to get her out of there." Elijah answered.

They walked into the bar and saw her up on the karaoke stage, jumping around as she belted Three Days Grace's "The good life."

"Did you know she could still sing?" Klaus asked his brother, not looking away from her owning the stage like a true rock star.

"No I did not." Elijah answered not looking away from her either. He thought her outfit of a tight black leather vest that was only zipped half way, short black shorts, fishnet leggings and black closed toe heels made her look like a stripper, but her confidence made it work.

When the song was over Katie hopped down off the stage and headed to the bar. Klaus intercepted her and purposely bumped into her. "Hello, I'm walking here asshole." She didn't look at the guys face as she started to walk around him, but he grabbed her arm in a grasp too tight to be human and she looked up. "Klaus."

"Hello, Sweetheart." He told her with a closed lipped smile and tilt of his head.

"Unless you intend on having a drink with me or taking me to a hotel I suggest you let go of me."

"Sorry love, that's not why I'm here." He told her as his face turned serious.

"Mkay." She told him as she did an evasive maneuver on him, but he anticipated it and managed to wrap his arms around her, holding her arms down to her sides. A sigh left her flared nostrils as she stomped on his foot, stabbing him with the pointed heel of her shoe then slammed her head back into his face and he let her go. She whooshed outside, where Elijah, who she felt too late, whooshed in front of her and stabbed her in the neck with a syringe of vervain. "Seriously?" She sighed as her world faded to black.

* * *

Katie woke up with a groan and tried to pick up her hand, intending on rubbing the sore spot on her neck, but her wrist was tied down to a metal chair. She looked around to see that she was in the middle of a beach house living room. Waves crashing off in the distance filled her ears. "Sleeping beauty finally awakens." Klaus said making her look to the left to see him sitting on a leather couch that separated the living room from the kitchen that Elijah walked out of with a drink in his hand.

Bright light shined in through the picturesque windows on each side of the door in front of her. "How long have I been out?" she asked with a squint.

"Around nine hours." Elijah answered then looked down at Klaus who took Elijah's drink from him.

"So what's the plan? Torture me into turning my humanity back on?" she asked with an uncomfortable grunt.

"No, love, you see we've discussed it and we both agree that you're no stranger to physical torture." Klaus told her.

"Yes, Caroline has informed us that when Alaric tortured the two of you, you were a…what was it?" Elijah asked Klaus.

"A stone cold trooper." Klaus told her with a smile. "Plus I know you endured the pain of vervain just to chew through your gag like a caged animal. So vervain and splinters will be useless on you. We've got something we think will be a little more effective in store for you."

His use of _we_ made her start laughing. "_We_? The _two_ of you are going to work together to save me from my humanity-less self?"

"Why is that funny?" Elijah asked.

"Well, all things considered…" Katie told him with a look at Klaus

"Am I missing something?" Elijah asked with a narrow eyed look at her.

"No." Klaus answered making Katie laugh harder.

"Yes." Katie said as she made herself stop laughing. "Klaus and Rebekah have been keeping you in the dark." She told Elijah who pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes further. She then looked at Klaus. "Do you want to tell him or should I?"

"Katie…don't. This is not the time." He told her as he turned his head to the side and blinked at her.

"_I think now is the perfect time."_ Katie thought to herself knowing that if she managed to turn them against each other the likely hood of them forcing her humanity back on would be cut in half.

"One of you speak…now." Elijah demanded.

Katie looked at Klaus and raised a challenging brow, but he just looked at her with pleading eyes that didn't faze her in the slightest. "Klaus and I had sex." She said then turned her eyes to Elijah. "Mind blowing…earth shaking…high class porn worthy fornication." She knew when Elijah's jaw slacked and Klaus blinked at her that it had worked. Did Klaus really expect her to keep that to herself? "Or did we make love?" she asked herself since she couldn't tell the difference anymore. Klaus whooshed off the couch and grabbed a roll of duct tape. "Either way it was fucking amaz-" she was cut off when he slapped a piece of tape over her mouth.

As soon as Klaus turned around Elijah punched him and sent him flying through one of the glass windows and over the rail of the stilted beach house. Katie heard the thud of him hitting the ground below. Elijah whooshed away and continued to fight his brother, but Katie tuned it out and started working on getting the duct tape off of her mouth. As soon as she did she toed off one of her boots, grabbed it with her feet that they stupidly hadn't tied to the chair and tossed it into her lap. She used one of her hands to start taking out the lace of it. When she got it out she managed to toss one end of it up on her chest then pushed her breasts together and picked the end of the lace up with her teeth. From there she whipped her head around until her caught the other end in her hand and threaded it under the ropes on her wrist then down to her foot and grabbed it with her toes.

With everything in place she moved the boot lace back and forth. She was weak from the vervain still working it's way out of her system, but eventually the friction burned through the rope setting her hand free. She untied the rope on her other hand then kicked off her other boot and whooshed to the back exit out of the house. Lucky for her the brothers were still throwing fists and breaking shit and didn't see or hear her leave.

She drained the first person she came across then sweet talked her way into a house and compelled the people inside.

* * *

Beaten, battered and tired the brothers went back into the beach house to find her gone. Elijah looked at her unlaced boot, the wet duct tape, and burned rope putting it all together. "Cleaver girl." Elijah commented.

"Cleaver girl or half assed kidnappers?" Klaus asked as Elijah tossed the rope on the floor and stood up.

"Bit of both." Elijah answered. "Lucky for me I can track her." Elijah whooshed away. Klaus rolled his eyes and took off after him.

* * *

Katie was sitting in the living room with the family of three, watching cartoons when she felt Elijah tracking her down. An aggravated sigh left her lips. "Are you okay Miss Scarlett?" The little girl sitting next to her on the couch asked.

"Yes, Miley, I'm fine. Keep watching the cartoon." She told her then got up from the couch and went to the kitchen where it was quiet.

Taking a shot in the dark she closed her eyes and concentrated on kinking her connection to Elijah.

* * *

Elijah and Klaus were whooshing through a row of abandoned warehouses when he lost contact with her and stopped. "What?" Klaus asked.

"I can't feel her." Elijah said in confusion. "I believe she has cut me off."

"Well it can't be the first time that's happened." Klaus commented.

Elijah ignored him. "She is roughly fifteen miles due east. Assuming she is not on the move as we speak." He told Klaus.

"Then let's hope whatever she is doing won't hold long." Klaus told him and he walked past him.

* * *

The longer Katie held off Elijah the more draining it became and the hungrier she got. After two hours, blood flooded to her eyes and she snapped, letting Elijah back in as she whooshed to the home office where the father of the house was working through lunch and sank her teeth into his neck. "Miss Scarlett?" A small voice came from behind her and she turned, letting little Miley see Katie in all her vampire glory, blood dripping down her chin and neck. Katie whooshed over to the terrified six year old and looked into her eyes, "Go to your room and stay there." The little girl screamed and ran upstairs.

* * *

"I can feel her again." Elijah said feeling her essence fill him once again. He whooshed away leaving Klaus to trail behind. Katie knew he was close when she felt the pull in the pit of her stomach and rolled her eyes. "Open the door, Katie."

"Not happening, Handsome." She told him, looking at him through the peep hole to see him rolling something around in his hand. Recalling the change through the coffee shop window incident she whooshed to the dead father, ripped out his heart, then whooshed to little Miley's room.

A few minutes later the little girl opened the front door, her father's heart cupped in her little hands as she looked up at the two men standing on the other side. "Miss Scarlett told me tell you that if you do not leave her alone, the next heart to be ripped out will be mine." She tossed the heart over the threshold and it bounced across the wood porch to Klaus's feet. Klaus and Elijah shared a look, both knowing that Katie would never forgive herself for what she had just done.

Elijah kneeled down and looked the little girl in the eyes. "Come outside."

"I can't." She answered.

"She's already compelled her not to listen to us." Klaus pointed out with a motion a the child.

"And she is in the basement." Elijah looked at Klaus with hard eyes and tossed the pebbles in his hand out into the driveway. "We need a human."

"I'm on it." Klaus stalked off with his determined walk.

* * *

Katie was lying on the sofa of the basement man cave with her eyes closed and ear buds in her ears. She no longer felt Elijah near so she assumed he and Klaus were gone. However, silenced shots were taken from the top of the stairs, darts pumped her full of vervain and she passed out. The ex navy seal Klaus managed to find and arm with vervain picked Katie up and tossed her over her shoulder. She carried her outside and passed her off to Klaus who motioned for her to give her to him.

Elijah whooshed over. "Your talents are highly appreciated." he put a hundred dollar bill in her hand. "Thank you." He looked into her eyes, "forget everything that happened in the last forty-five minutes." The woman nodded and walked off.

* * *

The first thing to make it into her semi conscious state was that she was laying on a soft bed on her back. The second was the voice's of Klaus and Elena, who Katie knew was now a vampire thanks to someone who told her, she just didn't care or remember who told her. "I apologize for the lack of windows. It's to preserve the art." She heard Klaus say in the room next door to hers. "And of course to prevent you from taking off your daylight ring and burning yourself to death in the sun." Katie sat up and looked around to see three solid walls of brick and the forth that was across from the foot of the bed made of wood with a thick looking metal door. A crystal chandelier hung over the bed and another across the room. Statues and sculptures were decoratively placed around the room and very old looking works of art hung on the walls in the room.

"I'm not going to kill myself. I would never do that." Elena told him.

"No, but you'll want to. I did. Problem is I'm immortal." Klaus told her.

"You went though this?" Elena asked.

"Yes, I did. For fifty two years, four months and nine days." He told her. "I was tormented in my dreams…my every waking moment. Relentless, never ending torture. It was the only period of my life when I actually felt time."

"So you knew that this would happen if Connor died? That's why you got involved." Elena asked. "Did Stefan know too?"

"All he knew was that the hunter had to be kept alive." Klaus told her. "You should have listened to him when he said he had it covered, love."

While they talked, Katie walked around the room looking at the works of art. "What else does Stefan know?" Elena asked.

"Now that's one of life's little mysteries isn't it?" he answered.

"How did you make it stop?" Elena asked.

"I didn't, eventually it just stopped." Klaus answered. "The hallucinations tend to appear in strange forms."

When she heard the door to the room Elena was in slam shut she expected Klaus to come to her room, but he didn't. With no windows and no clocks Katie lost track of how long she was in that room before the door finally opened and Elijah came in. Someone pushed in a tv strapped to a rolling stand. A dvd player was plugged into it. "What, is it movie time in junior high or something?" she asked weakly from not having blood for a while.

He remained quiet until the minion left and locked them in. He grabbed one of the two leather chairs in the room and moved it across from the tv then motioned at it with his hand, elegantly like usual. "Sit and watch."

"Sir yes sir." She replied snippily and sat down in the chair.

He grabbed a remote off of the stand and walked around to stand behind her then pressed play. Alan Jackson's "Remember When" started playing as a slide show of pictures of her and her friends started playing. The music faded as a video of Katie and Caroline riding their bikes as little girls started playing. The girls, laughing and not paying attention, wrecked into each other and both fell off their bikes. Katie scraped her knee and started crying. Caroline who was okay rushed to her side as Katie's mother, who had been filming passed off the camera to someone and ran to Katie. "It's okay baby girl." Her mother assured her child in a calming voice. "It's just a scrape."

"Mommy, it hurts." Katie cried.

"It'll stop soon." The little blond that was Caroline told Katie then stuck out her little leg and ripped a Cinderella bandage off of her own knee. "See." She poked at her scabbed over knee. "You just need a bandage to make it feel better. Right Mrs. Finnegan?"

"Right, Caroline." Katie's mom brushed Caroline's hair out of her face then held her hand out to Katie. "Come on, let's get you a bandage."

"A pretty princess one?" Katie asked now more concerned with making her leg look pretty than she was the pain.

Her mom laughed. "I'll see what I can find." Her mother then noticed that whoever was recording was still recording and waved at them to turn off the camera and the video cut off.

The music kicked back up as did the slide show of pictures. They mapped out her whole life and every friendship she ever made. A picture of her at an eighth grade party popped up on the screen. She was sitting on a hard wood floor with a beer in her hand, an empty beer bottle on the floor in the center of the circle of preteens. It had been taken right after Katie found out she'd have to go into the closet with the immature, douchy Tyler Lockwood. Her face was beet red and Caroline who was sitting next to her had a big smile on her face as she pointed at Katie. Matt on her other side had an oh-shit look on his young face.

When that picture faded a video of Tyler popped up on the screen. He spoke of how he loved her and thought for a split second about buying her a ring when she told him she was pregnant. She tuned it out, but when a video of Damon started she couldn't help but pay attention. Damon was standing in his bedroom with an aggravated look on his face. "This isn't going to work." He said with an eye roll. "She didn't care about me before she flipped the switch, why will she care now?"

"Talk." Caroline barked at him. "Tell her how much she means to you."

Damon sighed and licked his lips as he leaned on the post of his bed with his forearm. "Katie you are…one of the most understanding…caring…kind hearted and loyal people I know, but you're also stubborn as hell and a major pain in my ass sometimes."

"Damon!" Caroline snapped and he gave her a look. "Good things please."

Damon sighed and rolled his eyes. "You caught my attention not because of your outer beauty, those glasses of yours were horrendous, but because you are gorgeous on the inside too. You cared so much for your friends that you made me want your friendship even though I could have cared less about making friends with anyone at that time. You…_compelled_, me to want you to be my friend…That's how powerful your friendship is. It's one of the many reasons why I fell in love with you and why I still love you." He took the camera and focused it on the top of his dresser as he walked over to it, showing her a framed photo of her and Damon kissing, the necklace he had given her hanging on the corner of the frame. "I never told you, but I gave you a moon and star pendant because I couldn't wait for nightfall so I could sneak into your bedroom window." He put his face in the center of the video. "You won't feel anything now, but when you flip that switch back on and everything comes flooding back…I want you to look at that ring on your finger and remember that I never stopped loving you…it just changed into a different type of love and we pushed each other away. And as a side note, I'm still sorry I never took you on a real date." His eye watered right before the video cut off.

One of Stefan started and Katie let her head fall back and started pretending to snore. Elijah didn't think this would work, but just incase Caroline and the rest of her friends knew something he didn't he kept letting it play. More interviews of Matt, Elena, a tired and emotionally distressed Bonnie, and even Jeremy then it ended with an interview of Caroline herself that basically gave her the same speech she had given her after they found out Klaus had been desiccated.

"Did you really think that sappy crap was going to work?" Katie asked as she looked across her right shoulder at Elijah.

"No I did not." He told her as he turned off the tv and set the remote back on the rolling metal stand. "But I had to try."

"So what are you going to do, keep me locked in this room for forever?" she asked.

"If that is how long it takes to get you to take back your humanity and keep you from emotionally scarring more innocent kids…yes." He told her then walked over to the door and knocked on it. Someone opened it from the outside and let Elijah out then shut it behind them.

* * *

Once again Katie didn't know how long she had been in the room before the door was opened again. This time Klaus walked in and shoved a guy into the room then walked in behind him. Her eyes took in the guy in his late twenties with auburn hair and skin the same light ivory tone as Katie's with a few freckles peppered over his nose that looked like hers. Now that she really looked at him, she'd actually gotten a lot of her features from her father…he was just a masculine version of her.

"Bradley." She observed emotionlessly as she stood up from the chair in the room and walked over to him. "Mom said you're good at talking people into things they don't want to do" she stopped a few feet away from him and gave him a come at me motion with her hands. "Give it your best shot. You won't succeed." Klaus, who was leaning back on the metal door with his arms cross, smirked at the line he knew she'd picked up from him.

"You've spoken to your mother?" he asked confused.

"Yep. That's how I know you killed her. Apparently your aim sucks." She told him with a sneer. "Just like I know that the two of you left me with that abusive piece of shit grandfather of mine to go to New Orleans and find your way into Klaus's inner circle and keep him and Elijah from ever finding me." Bradley looked at her with a frown. "I know that you drunkenly told Damon Salvatore that you would never come back to Mystic Falls because the last thing I needed were vampires in my life. News flash!" She made flashing motions with her hands. "I am a vampire and not only did the originals find me I slept under the same roof as all of them." She looked over at Klaus, "and _with_ two of them." Bradley sighed and rubbed at his temples and she started laughing. "It's enough to make your head spin right?"

Bradley made a move to leave only to see that Klaus hadn't left the room like he thought he had. "Abandoning her again, mate?" he asked with a glare.

Bradley realized he couldn't run so he walked over to Katie and grabbed her shoulders. "My Little Scarlett." He stared, looking her in the eyes. She looked back into his green eyes that matched hers. "I am so sorry. I only ever tried to do what I thought was best for you… I want you to know I never stopped loving you. There's so much more I want to tell you, but it will never mean anything unless you turn it back on. Baby girl… you have to feel the pain to feel the good you have to open that door and let it all back in or my worst fear will come true. You will be lost forever. I will never get to know the daughter that I so stupidly left behind. I am begging you…My Little Scarlett, turn it back on." He could not have been more sincere.

"Mom must have been the weakest woman in the world because that…" she twirled her finger pointing at him, "sucked ass." Bradley sighed and let his head fall forward in disappointment. She looked at Klaus then at Bradley. "If you can get past him you can see yourself out."

Klaus knocked on the door and one of his minions opened it letting them both out. "Well that didn't work." Katie heard Damon on the other side of the door. "Here's an idea, compel her to flip it back on."

"She will just switch it back off." Elijah argued.

"So compel her to never turn it off again." Damon told him with a loud tone and distain in his voice.

"Compulsion will solve nothing. It has to be genuine. She has to _want_…it." Elijah told him getting angry at Damon.

"Well, I would love to stay and keep up the dynamic save Katie threesome we've got going on, but I've got to go teach Little Gilbert how to actually fight before he starts trying to murder vampires and gets himself killed."

* * *

That night Elijah sat in the room in Klaus's house that Katie was being held in, watching her where she slept in the middle of the bed on top of the fluffy comforter. With a heavy heart he took her hand in his. He never meant for this to happen when he left. He thought she would be safer without him in her life putting a target on her back, but he realized now that he had been very, _very_ wrong.

He also realize that in leaving her, he pushed her right into Klaus's arm. He hadn't been completely blind throughout the short time that he and Katie had been together. He had seen the way Klaus looked at her and the way Katie didn't hate him as much as he thought she should considering all the bad things he had done and the fact that he had killed her in her first life.

He had also heard her at the ball when she asked Klaus who he would choose between her and Caroline. Why would she have asked if she didn't want to hear him say that he would choose her? She had openly admitted that they'd kissed while he was daggered. He had no one to blame for Katie and Klaus but himself. And it pissed him off to no end and hurt him even more because if all it took was a month for her to move on, did she really ever love him?

Desperately trying to think of a way to get her humanity back so he could get some answers, he started thinking about their link. It was like a tube, connecting them with a constant flow of back and forth energy and emotion. With her switch flipped it was simply just energy he felt from her. She had constricted the tube once, and if she could do that…could he dilate the tube and open the flow. Could he let her feel his emotions even though she couldn't feel her own?

He closed his eyes and concentrated. The longer he concentrated the more restless she started to grow until she opened her eyes, shot straight up in the bed and looked at him. "What are you doing? Why do I feel…angery and hurt?" she asked trying to pull her hand out of his, but he wouldn't let her break the contact.

"Because I am angry and hurt." He answered and she stood from the bed still attempting to pull her hand from his.

"_You're_ angry? _You're _hurt" she asked with a scoff as her pupils dilated. "_You_ are the one who left me!" she yelled at him. "You are the one who told me you'd never hurt me, who filled me full of hope and love. Who made me look forward to a future together then ended it the first time things got hard." As she yelled at him he started to grow weak and he tried to pull his shaking hand away, but she placed hers over it to keep him from moving it. It felt like she was sucking the energy out of him and he wasn't sure she even knew that she was doing it. "If you wanted me to be safe you should have stayed! You should have talked to me about your fears and concerns. But you took matters into your own hands! You, just like every other man in my life before you, decided what was best for me without even asking me. So please tell me why in the hell you think you're the one who gets to be angry!"

"Katie you need to calm down." He told her looking down at his hand that he couldn't take off of her now. "Turn your humanity back on so we can have a rational discussion."

"No." she told him with flared nostrils and blood filled eyes. "I'm never turning it back on."

"Please, my love, think about what you're doing to yourself." He begged.

"I said no!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, sucking the last bit of energy from Elijah making them both pass out.

* * *

Elijah woke up in his bed at Klaus's house feeling weak and extremely hungry. Then he remembered that he and Katie had passed out in her holding bedroom. Someone had moved him. With a whoosh he went downstairs to Katie's room and the guard let him in. He found Katie lying in bed with her hands folded over her stomach. Klaus was let into the room and Elijah didn't look up from her as he asked, "How long have we been out?"

"Almost a day and a half." Klaus answered as he walked over to the other side of the bed.

"Explains why I'm so parched." Elijah said and Klaus held up a glass of blood. Elijah took it and took a drink as he walked over to look down at Katie. "Any movement from her?"

"Other than breathing, no." Klaus answered then watched Elijah wave the glass of blood under her nose. "Tried that." Elijah dipped his finger in the blood and Klaus knew he was going to put it in her mouth or smear it on her lips. "Tried that too."

"Why didn't she wake up when I did?" he was thinking out loud more than asking Klaus.

"Not a clue, but then again all I know is I woke up to her yelling at you and by the time I got down here the two of you were passed out." Klaus said with a look up at Elijah. "Care to fill me in?"

Elijah told him what happened causing yet another fight to occur.

* * *

"She should be awake by now." Elijah said as he paced the floor of her holding room. "Mother warned us that dying and coming back would eventually destroy her soul and I stupidly poured my rage into it. I can not feel her essence anymore. What if I single handedly destroyed her soul?"

"We will not know until she wakes up, will we?" Klaus asked with a harsh impatience, angry at Elijah for doing what he did.

* * *

"WAKE UP!" Klaus yelled, his hands on Katie's shoulders as he leaned over her, tears of worry on his face.

"Get off of her Niklaus!" Elijah whooshed into the room and shoved him away from her.

"You did this to her!" Klaus shouted with a point at his brother. "Would it have killed you to just leave her alone for once?" he asked pacing back and forth at the foot of her bed. "Look at her." he stopped and pointed at her. Elijah looked down at her to see her purple fingertips and toes. The dark circles of starvation under her eyes. "She is not only stuck in a coma, but desiccating because of you."

"Keep an eye on her, I need some air." Elijah told him then walked away.

*~That night~*

Klaus moved Katie to her room upstairs and was sitting by her on the bed with his back to the door when Elijah walked over and looked down at her, tapping his fingertips on the white post of the headboard taking in her degenerating state. The purple-grey of her desiccation had reached her elbows and knees. The blood bag that was connected to her arm was doing nothing to help her.

"Bonnie came while you were off doing who knows what." Klaus spoke up. "Katie's not just desiccating from lack of blood intake. You overpowered her soul and shattered her. If her soul ceases to exist, so does she." He looked up at Elijah with angry eyes. "You all but signed her death certificate."

Elijah's wide brown eyes watered and hands shook as he kneeled down, placing his head on the mattress. His hand slid over her cold, motionless one and held it as he let his tears soak the plush comforter.

Damon knocked on the frame of the open door making Elijah and Klaus look up to see him along with Caroline, Bonnie, Elena, and Stefan. "I don't know if either of you know this, but today is her birthday." Damon told them as he walked over to the side of the bed where Klaus was sitting and pulled the necklace he had given her out of his pocket. "May I?" Klaus stood up and moved out of Damon's way, but didn't let go of her hand. Damon put her necklace on her then walked over to the foot of the bed where her group of friends was standing.

Caroline opened her hand showing Bonnie and Elena the star charm bracelet she had found in Katie's bedroom at her house. "You do it." Bonnie told her, a tear slipping out of her red eyes. "You were closest to her in the end."

Elena didn't say anything considering she didn't care. She had flipped her humanity off and was only there because Damon and Stefan were forcing her to be, hoping that what was happening to Katie would make her feel something.

Caroline walked over to Klaus's side of the bed and he held Katie's hand and arm while Caroline fastened the bracelet around her purple-gey wrist.

Before she turned from him, Caroline rubbed his shoulder and looked at his red tearstained eyes then mouthed, "I'm sorry." She was the only one who really understood why he even cared that Katie was dying.

When she rejoined her group of friends they all looked at Stefan. "I've never bought her anything." He said with wide eyes realizing he didn't have anything to give her.

Damon rolled his eyes and pulled a rolled up picture out of his back pocket. "Got you covered baby bro."

Stefan unfolded the picture to see that it was the one he'd had framed for her. "I don't get it." Elena said with confusion.

"The mystery gift was from you." Caroline spoke up remembering the unmarked gift from Katie's last birthday party. Stefan leaned forward and set the picture on Katie's stomach.

Taking in the things that her friends had given her Klaus whooshed down stairs grabbed a picture off the table in his studio and whooshed back to the room. As he walked in he went to the vanity, grabbed the teal jewelry box and held it out to Elijah who took it and popped it open to see the necklace he had given her. He'd assumed that after what he'd put her through that she threw it away. Instead of putting it around her neck with Damon's necklace, he wrapped the chain around her wrist then fastened it.

Klaus walked around the bed and sat the picture he'd drawn of her in her ball gown on her chest. After a few minutes everyone started to clear out, but Katie shot straight up in bed taking in a deep breath and they all looked at her in shock as she panted out, "What the hell happened?"


	37. Chapter 37

**Phoenix Rising****  
****Ch. 37**

Katie woke up to find herself standing on black marble covered in an inch of water that she was somehow on top of. A sky of black hung over her head. Not the beautiful kind speckled with bright stars, but a glossy, inky darkness that caused her chest to tighten.

As she stood up she saw that she was wearing a plain white long sleeved off the shoulder cotton dress that flowed down to her feet. A child's laughter drew her eyes down into the water to see that a thousand shards of glass were scattered around her feet. The laughter came from one of the shards and she looked down to see within it a little boy around seven or eight with blond, bowl cut hair and innocent green eyes running though the woods.

As Katie reached down to pick up the shard, the little boy jumped, popping out of the glass as the vast darkness turned into a bright forest that smelled of pine needles and warn soil. She didn't know why, but the sent made her feel at home. "Don't be scared Momma, it's just me."

"And you are…?"Katie asked with a frown.

"Fun." The little boy bounced on his feet, full of energy. "Wanna play hide and seek?" he asked perking up with a smile.

"No. What I want is to know where the hell I am." Kate told him then looked around them.

"Hey!" the boy picked up a pine cone and threw it at her chest. "No swearing."

Katie leaned down to look the little boy in the eyes. "Look, you little brat, I don't know who you are and I don't care. I just want to get out of here."

The boy glared at her. "Be nice!" he ran off making Katie run after him. "Nanna nanna boo boo. I can out run you." the boy sang as he ran. Something about the phrase made Katie start laughing as she caught up to the boy and scooped him up in her arms.

"I remember you now." Katie told him as she made a claw motion with her hand and attacked his stomach, making him giggle from her tickling him. "Hello my sweet little Jonah." She told him as she set him down then kneeled down in front of him.

"Hello momma." He told her as he placed his little hand on her cheek with a smile. When she smiled back he evaporated into a mist that swirled around in the air forming a bright yellow ball. It sank into her chest causing a feeling or motherly love, caring and compassion overtake her.

With him gone the forest faded away and she was back in the dark place, standing in the center of the shattered glass again. "Phasmatos Tribum," Katie heard someone say and looked down at a piece of glass to see a beautiful almond skinned woman standing at a table in the bedroom of an old Irish homestead, working a spell. This time as Katie reached down for the glass, she got sucked into it and she found herself sitting on a bed while another, slightly younger woman that looked a lot like the woman working the spell, pressed a cloth to Katie's back making her hiss in pain.

"Sorry." The young girl told her. "Someone needs to show that man how it feels."

"Fiona." The woman working the spell snapped at the young woman. "Mind you tongue. If someone should over hear you it will be you on the receiving end of that whip."

"Yes mother." Fiona told her quietly. Fiona finished cleaning the wounds then sat down on the bed in front of Katie. "Hannah, promise me when we get old enough we will leave this place, both of us. I know you do not want to live under your fathers thumb forever and I don't either. Promise me that when you find a good man you will take me with you."

Katie had been sitting quietly on the bed, trying to remember this and when she looked into Fiona's dark brown eyes she did. She remembered that when she married Ronan she stole money from her father's office and ran with Ronan. They used the money to start Fiona's shop in the town they moved to. "I promise, Fiona. You're my best friend. I wouldn't dare leave this place without you."

Fiona wrapped her arms around Katie who wrapped her arms around her first best friend's shoulders feeling friendship and loyalty sink into her and when she opened her eyes she was back in the black place.

"Okay is see what's going on here. These pieces are me, I'm a mother and a friend." She said looking around at the shattered glass around her. "This is going to take a while."

"Not as long as you might think, Doormat." A voice came from one of the pieces and Katie looked over to see a woman pop up from the floor, joining her in the black place.

Katie looked at her, taking in her blond hair streaked with red, pulled back in a Vikings ponytail. A leather corset with buckles covered her torso while a leather Viking's skirt wrapped around her hips. There was a fire in her eyes and a spear in her hand. "Why are we still here? Aren't you supposed to take me to a memory or something?"

"I'm not a memory I'm a feeling." The warrior told her with a voice full of strength. "But if you insist on memories…here." The woman walked across the water with an eye roll and plopped her hand down on top of Katie's head. Katie telling Alaric about Mayor Lockwood abusing Tyler, telling her grand father off and telling Elena off when Caroline made them all have a sit down flashed through her head. The last memory was Katie fighting the werewolves that were holding Caroline hostage in a camper.

"You're my fight, my strength to keep going." Katie said as she lifted her eyes. "My inner warrior."

"You often forget I exist and quite frankly I'm tired of it. You need to learn to be a big girl and pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have to. We're stronger than you think we are." She told her and Katie swallowed hard. "And if we're going to survive in this hard world you need me." she held her hand out to Katie who grabbed it and gave it a shake. The warrior pulled her into a hug and sank into her filling Katie with strength and power. Most of the other shards of glass floated up, turned into a big ball of mist that floated over her head then dropped, filling her with all the memories she had lost when she shattered.

After she absorbed it all she looked down at the last, large piece of glass and picked it up to see within it an auburn haired woman in a black, form fitting tank top, short black shorts and thigh high stiletto boots standing in the middle of a street as a man strolled past, the woman grabbed him around the neck and spun him around for Katie to see his face, he was an older man, too tan and too buff for his age. It was her grandfather. The woman's eyes turned red and fangs appeared in her smile before she bit his neck killing him before she tossed him to the side giving Katie an unforgiving smile.

Katie watched from an aerial view as people came to the woman as if drawn to her like flies to a honey. Each of them were either drained of blood or got their hearts ripped out. The last person to come to the woman was a little girl that looked no older than six and a man. Fear was clear in the girls little eyes as she watched the woman rip out the man's heart. The dark ruthless girl placed it in the girls hands making the girl scream and run. The woman looked up at Katie and hissed, showing off the blood on her fanged mouth and the veins under her red eyes.

With a hard face and fight surging through her she threw the glass away from her like a throwing star. The glass stopped in mid air a few feet away from her and materialized into the haunting, monstrous version of herself. She reeked of anger, hatred, danger and most of all an overpowering thirst for human blood. "I won't accept you." Katie told her.

The dark, terrifying woman whooshed over to her grabbed her by her neck and body slammed her into the granite. "Then you…will die." Her words came out as an angry growling hiss.

"No." Katie brought her feet up and kicked her in the chest sending her flying through the darkness. Darkness landed in what Katie called the superhero landing and skid backward splashing water up around her. Katie flung herself up and held her fists in front of herself.

"You think you can survive without me?" Darkness asked as she whooshed back over and threw a punch that Katie dodged.

"I will be better off without you." Katie told her making her laugh.

"Look at yourself." Katie looked down at herself to see she was now wearing a white ribbed racer back tank top, jeans shorts and black and white converse, but her arms were purple all the way up to her shoulders and spreading fast. While she was distracted Darkness threw a punch, catching Katie's jaw and she stumbled back from the blow.

"It will stop when I get out of here." Katie threw a punch that Darkness dodged.

"You get out of here without me and you will die within seconds." Darkness threw a punch and Katie dodged it then threw one of her own catching Darkness in the jaw then kicked her in the chest knocking her to the granite.

She grabbed Darkness up by her black tank top and glared at her. "I said no."

"And I said…" Darkness breathed hard from the blow to her chest, "You will die if you don't. You may be stronger than me, you may be able to keep me at bay, but if you go back to your body without me…without a piece of who you are…you…will…die." Darkness looked at her with a dead serious face. "No more Elijah. No more Klaus. You can kiss your friends goodbye too." Katie's eyes grew wide remembering everything everyone told her in the video Caroline made for her. "Accept me."

She blinked, tears slipping from her eyes. "If I accept you…I accept that I am not a good person."

"You've never been a good person." Darkness told her as she jumped up. "When we were known as Hannah did we not think of a million different ways to turn that whip on Father, or to poison him? You even thought about running away in the night and abandoning your poor little sister. Then as Katie…you contemplated killing your grandfather in his sleep. You thought about tying him to a chair and breaking every bone in his body then slitting his throat for ever letting Mayor Lockwood touch you. You cheated on Tyler with Damon and yeah you knew it was wrong, you felt a little bad about it, but you weren't sorry. You slept with Klaus knowing that Elijah still loves you. Then of course there are all those people you killed after you flipped your switch. You don't feel sorry about that. You don't care that they had family and kids. Their blood tasted better than any blood bag ever did. You have power over humans and you _revel_ in it. There has, and always will be, a darkness in you rather you want it or not. The only thing you regret is what you did to that poor little girl."

"I don't want you. Suppressing you is tiring. I managed to hold it back as a human, but now…every day is torture." Katie said with tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Then maybe it is time you accept me…accept the darkness in you…and find a way to embrace me instead of suppress me." She told Katie with a glare. "You have to accept me or need I remind you again. You'll. Die."

As much as Katie hated the darkness in her, she loved her friends. And she loved Elijah and Klaus. She still wanted all the things she always did out of life…she wanted to live. "I accept you…"

As soon as the words left her mouth the woman threw herself into Katie, not sinking into her gently like the others had, but invasively inserting herself into her. Like the splitting of cells, but reversed. Katie threw her head back and screamed out in pain as the darkness seeped into her, fangs formed in her mouth and veins popped under her eyes, pumping the whites of them full of blood. She squeezed her eyes shut and fell to her knees. After a while the pain subsided and she fell back in relief.

She expected to hit granite; instead she started falling down a black tunnel. She felt like she had been falling for forever when out of nowhere she stopped mid air and a woman appeared in front of her holding her hand out as if she was keeping Katie from falling further even though she was floating too. "Who are you?" Katie asked taking in the woman's long brown hair and blue eyes. She looked to be in her late forties.

"Dahlia." She answered. "It seems fated that you should end up here in the place of my slumber." Katie gave the woman a confused shake of her head. "You're soul shattered landing you neither on earth, passed on or on the other side. That's not something that happens often." Katie just glared at the woman. "When you shattered, your memories scattered throughout this place. While you were putting yourself back together I was looking at them and I've seen enough to know you've been intimate with my nephew."

"Look I don't know who you are, but I'm pretty sure my memories and who I'm intimate with are none of your business and I'd like nothing more to continue my journey back to my body." She told her with an attitude induced sway of her head. "So if you could kindly put me down it would be highly appreciated."

"Before I put you down I'm going to give you a gift." She told her still holding her hand out in front of her.

"What?" Katie asked.

Dahlia flicked her wrist causing an odd tingling feeling to spread over and sink into Katie's lower abdomen. "You're welcome." Dahlia dropped Katie and as she fell she looked up to see Dahlia disappear.

* * *

Katie shot straight up in bed taking in a deep breath. She looked around to see her friends in the doorway of her bedroom at Klaus's house, "What the hell happened?" she asked then looked up at the blood bag hanging on an iv that was stuck in her arm. "I'm starving."

As her friends came back into the room Elijah took the blood bag off the pole while she pulled the needle out of her arm. He disconnected the tube then handed her the bag. She grabbed it and sucked it down, the color returning to her skin as she did. "What is the last thing that you remember?" Elijah asked as he took the empty bag from her.

"You…making me feel with our link." Katie answered the realized that she didn't feel the pull in her stomach that she usually did when he was near. "Our link…" she sighed looking Elijah in his brown eyes. "It's gone."

"I assume you are relieved." He told her bluntly as he looked down at the tube in his hand.

She frowned remembering she had told him that she'd hoped it would break when she turned off her humanity. "I-" she was cut off when something started burning her chest and she grabbed it and pulled it off to see the necklace Damon had given her hanging from the chain in her hand. "Ouch." She sighed and put it down on the bed beside her seeing the picture Stefan had framed for her and the drawing of her in her ball gown that Klaus had made. "Seriously someone tell me what the hell's going on." She said as she took the necklace Elijah had given her off her wrist and set it on the bed next to Damon's. She noticed the bracelet her friends had given her and decided to leave it on.

"We thought you were dead, Katie Cat." Damon told her from where he leaned against the white post of her footboard.

"Huh?" Katie asked.

"When Elijah reached out to you with your link he overpowered your soul and shattered it." Bonnie answered. "Without a soul, your body started dying."

Katie looked over at Elijah. "Did you know that would happen?"

"No." he answered simply. "If I did I never would have reached out to you like that."

"Okay, I'm out of here." Elena said and left the room.

"Good to see you up, Katie Cat." Damon said as he walked over to her and kissed the top of her head. "Try not to die again, okay?" he told her then rushed after Elena.

"Yeah, I'm gonna go." Stefan spoke up feeling awkward since he and Katie hadn't been on good terms for some time now.

He started to leave ,but Katie spoke up. "Hey Stefan?" he turned and looked back at her. "I don't hate you, just do you know. You weren't really yourself and you rightfully wanted revenge. I just happened to be on the bad side of that." Stefan just looked at her. "We good?"

"Yeah, we're good." He told her with a closed lipped smile and a nod then left the room.

Katie looked at Bonnie and Caroline, "Is a fresh start too much to ask for?"

"No, we're good too." Bonnie told her with a teary eyed smile.

"So we're all friends again?" Caroline asked with a bright smile that made Katie smile.

"Yes." Katie answered. "Well, the three of us are. I'm not sure what was up with Elena."

"She flipped her switch, but that's a long story for another time." Bonnie told her looking sad all of a sudden.

Caroline looked at Katie, sitting on the bed with both Elijah and Klaus at her side. "We'll give you three some space." She hit Bonnie's shoulder with the back of her hand to get her attention then jerked her head to the door. "We'll see you tomorrow?" Caroline asked Katie who nodded.

With them gone Katie looked back and forth between Klaus and Elijah. "I need a drink." She slid off the bed and headed downstairs. She grabbed a bottle of bourbon out of the liquor cabinet and a glass. When she turned from the fridge from putting ice in the glass she found Klaus and Elijah sitting at the bar behind her. "I have no idea what to say to either of you. Somehow, I'm sorry just doesn't seem to cut it."

"You don't have to apologize." Elijah told her and she sighed.

"Yes, I do. I shouldn't have told you about me and Klaus." Klaus blinked at her and tilted his head to the side. "Not like that anyway." She poured some bourbon over the ice and capped the bottle. "But you know what?" she picked up the glass and pointed her finger at Elijah. "My love life stopped being your business when you…what did you call it again?" she asked looking around in thought even though she remembered exactly what he'd said. "Right, you let me go. Like a bird that wasn't perfectly find with the cage she was in."

"Niklaus, will you give us a minute?" Elijah asked with a look at Klaus. Klaus looked at Katie and she gave him a nod. So he walked away. "I left because I thought it was what was best for you." he told her and she opened her mouth to say something, but he held up his hand and she closed her mouth. "But as you pointed out before we passed out, you've had enough people telling what to do. I will forever regret becoming one of them. All I can do is hope that you will one day forgive me both for leaving you and shattering your soul."

Katie took a drink then set the glass down. "You hurt me, Elijah. You broke me, my trust and my belief in love." She took a drink as she watched him straighten the place mat in front of him. "And yes, I'm relieved that our link is broken." he stopped and looked up at her with a frown. "But it's not because I hate you for leaving me or any other malicious untrue reason. It's because the whole time I was with you I didn't know if what I felt for you was real or if it was the link pushing me to feel something for you. I blindly trusted it and jumped in feet first because I wanted so badly to feel loved and wanted." She paused to take a breath and another drink.

"I will admit it was unfair of me to expect us to simply pick up where we left off. I just missed you so much and waited so long to find you again that I overlooked that while you are exceptionally similar to the woman I fell in love with you are also vastly different." He told her not looking her in the eyes.

Katie threw back what was left of her drink and poured another. "I told you that I would always love you, link or no link and I meant it." she walked around the bar to stand in front of him.

"As did I." he told her and she smiled a little then let it fall.

"I'm going to be honest with you, I was hoping when that link broke that I wouldn't feel anything for you. That I could have an easy out of the pain that loving someone inevitably brings. But I look into your eyes and I feel that pain and heartbreak. So I know it was real."

"So what does that mean for us?" he asked as he propped his elbow up on the bar.

"It mean's that while I still love you and I always will I can't overlook that you chose to leave me. It mean's I can't just…jump back into it with you. However what I can do is forgive you for leaving me and shattering my soul. We both need to let go of the past and move on." She told him.

He looked back down at the place matt, tapping it with his fingertips. "And do you intend to move on with Klaus?" he asked quietly.

She sighed and leaned her hip on the bar. "If he will still have me, yes." She saw a pained look flash across his face. "I hope you know it wasn't my intention to hurt you by sleeping with him. I never intended on having feelings for him at all it just kind of happened."

"You do not have to explain yourself to me." He told her as he took his hand off the bar and stood up. He looked around with squinted eyes and pursed lips before he sighed and placed his hand on Katie's cheek, touching her for the first time since she woke up. Her eyes slipped closed from the comforting, familiar touch before she opened them and looked at him. "Does he make you happy?"

She picked up her foot and started tapping the toe of it into the hard wood floor. "Yes."

"Then you have nothing to feel bad about." He told her then leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead as her eyes slipped shut. "Goodbye, Katie." By the time she opened her eyes he was gone.

She was getting a blood bag out of the icebox when Klaus found her. "I see Elijah is gone."

"Yep." She said as she ripped the corner of the bag off with her teeth and spit it onto the bar then poured the blood into a clear glass.

"And you're still here." He observed.

"Is that okay with you?" she asked as she lifted the glass to her lips and took a drink.

"You are kidding right?" he asked as he walked around the bar and picked her up by her hips making her yelp and attempt to not spill her drink as he set her on the counter. She set the glass to the side and wrapped her legs around him as she rested her hands on his broad and toned yet kind of skinny shoulders. These actions told him all he needed to know before he pressed his lips to hers in a slow passionate kiss. After a few seconds it broke and he pressed his forehead to hers. "Do you know how hard it was to not kiss you the second you opened your eyes?"

"Not a clue. I've never wanted to kiss myself." She popped off and he pulled back to give her a get-serious look that made her smile a cheeky smile at him. "How long have I been out?"

"Three weeks." He answered.

"And how long since I flipped my switch?" she asked. "I kind of lost track of time in that horrible windowless room you and Elijah locked me in."

"Around three months." He answered and she slipped her hands down his chest.

"A lot can change in three months," She pointed out looking him in the eyes.

"A lot has changed." he told her as he looked into her eyes and brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers, "I'm hoping we haven't?"

She smiled and bit her lip. "We haven't." As soon as the words left her lips he kissed her hungrily and slipped his hands under her white tank top. She pulled away. "Whoa, hey, what about Rebekah?" Katie asked.

"She has her own house now." he told her then started kissing her neck. "We had a bit of a falling out."

"Something tells me a dagger was involved." He rolled his eyes at her then started kissing her neck. "Slow your roll there Big Bad Wolf." she told him as she pulled back and smiled at the aggravated sigh that left his lips. "Before I get too lost in you can I have a few minutes to myself to shower and just…take a beat?"

"Of course." He told her then back up.

She hopped down, grabbed her glass of blood and down it. "I'll find you when I'm done." She told him with a flirty look as she headed upstairs.

Since they had the house to themselves she didn't bother grabbing clean clothes before she went to the bathroom, turned on the shower, waited for the water to warm up then stepped inside. As the warm water cascaded down her shoulders and back she thought about everything that she'd done since she flipped the switch, every kill, every person she compelled to do her bidding...none of it bothered her. She knew she should be weeping at the thought of taking someone's family away from them, of how many grieving people there were in the world thanks to her and her blood lust, but she didn't feel the need to. Yes she shouldn't have killed them, but she couldn't beet herself up about it.

Then she remembered the horrified look on the little girls face as she placed her dead father's still warm heart in her little hands. The thought of her face being the stuff of that little girl's nightmares, how much therapy that little girl was going to need just to function as a human. The realization that she single handedly crushed that little girl's innocence broke her. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she pressed her back against the shower wall and slid down wrapping her arms around her wet knees as she let it all out.

Eventually though she realized crying wouldn't make it any better. So she stood up, finished showering then wrapped her towel around herself and went to her room. After throwing on her usual lounging around outfit of a tank top and shorts she found Klaus in his room, lying shirtless in bed, reading a green faux leather book. "So this is your room huh?" she asked from the doorway as she looked around. Brown and cream sheer curtains hung over the windows, a brown and cream bedspread covered Klaus's lower half and a round dining table sat under a crystal chandelier that matched one of the chandeliers that had been in her holding room. Several framed hand written letters hung on the wall over the head of the bed. A lamp that sat on one of the bedside table's dimly lit the room.

"How was your shower?" he asked having heard her crying. She walked over to his side of the bed and hopped up on it then straddled him. Instead of answering him she pressed her face into his neck and wrapped her arms around his waist. The hug surprised him. Yes, they were close, they spoke intimately and had sex, and he'd hugged her when she cried about Elijah leaving her, but this hug was something more. This hug showed a certain amount of neediness and that wasn't something he'd felt from her before. She cared about him she wanted him, be he never thought she needed him. The fact that she did shook him to his core as he wrapped an arm around her waist and held the back of her neck with the other hand. The words I love you almost slipped over his lips, but he kept it to himself. Her soul had just shattered and in doing so flipped her switch back on, she was dealing with enough emotionally without him adding to it.

So instead of saying it, he slid down in the bed, keeping her on top of him as he grabbed a pillow and put it under his head. In an attempt to further comfort her he started playing with her damp hair. She hummed, closed her eyes and started lazily sliding her fingertips up and down his side. "That feels good." Her words made him smile. "Klaus?" she asked quietly.

"Yes, Sweetheart?" he asked still playing with her hair.

She found herself wanting to say those three little words, but she couldn't let herself. If she said it out loud she'd be letting him in. If she let him in, he could hurt her and if he said it back…she could hurt him. He was the last person she'd ever want to hurt. So instead of I love you she simply said, "Thank you."

"Any time." He told her making her smile. Then she opened her eyes and saw the green book on the bedside table.

"Is that my journal?" she asked putting her hand on his chest as she pushed herself up.

"Yes." He answered and she sat up to straddle him.

"Why were you reading it?" she drawled with suspicious eyes.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." He answered and she glared at him. "I'm the reason you abandoned your humanity, I wanted to be the one to help you find your way back."

"So what did you find out from reading the melodramatic bull crap that is my journal?" she asked as she started drawing nonsensical shapes on his chest.

"I know you like Italian food, hate chocolate and love cheesecake and strawberry ice cream. I found out that you lost your virginity to Damon, poor choice if you ask me, as well as a plethora of other things, but what caught my attention most was the poetry."

"Ugh." She made a disgusted noise and wrinkled her nose. "Why?"

"Because it's good." He told her giving her thigh a light squeeze. "And I like poetry."

"So…" she sighed deciding to change the subject before he decided to start filling her head with compliments. "Fill me in on what I've missed, please."

He pushed himself up to lean against the headboard then moved her around to sit between his legs leaning back on him with his arms wrapped around her.

From there he told her everything that happened since she flipped her switch. How when he found out about Katie flipping her switch he made Bonnie put him back into his body that hadn't been completely burned because the casket he was in when be was stabbed got closed and extinguished the flame.

How the hunter named Connor showed up in town. He was part of a group of five supernaturally gifted vampire hunters whose mission was to find the original immortal, Silas, and the cure to immortality, cure Silas then kill him. Klaus had to leave Katie with Elijah to help control the hunter. The freshly turned Elena killed the hunter and therefore became haunted by the hunters curse. When Elena killed the hunter, the tattoo that only hunters and potential hunters could see, showed up on Jeremy and the only way for Elena's hallucinations to stop was for Jeremy to kill a vampire. Caroline talked Klaus into letting Jeremy kill one of his hybrids.

Some guy named Shane who was a professor that took over the college class that Grams used to teach, started teaching Bonnie a type of magic called expression not telling her that it was a dark magic. Stefan and Elena broke up. Klaus and Stefan started working together to grow Jeremy's tattoo that would lead to the location of the cure to immortality. They both want it for Elena.

They found out that Elena was sire bound to Damon. Meaning she was in love with him before she turned. Klaus found out when they all tried to neutralize him that his hybrids had broken their sire bonds to him and Tyler had led the rebellion. Klaus killed all of his hybrids and Tyler's mom. Kol found out about them trying to find the cure and knew that if they did Silas would unleash hell on earth so he tried to thwart any attempt to find Silas. Klaus turned a bar full of people for Jeremy to kill and complete his mark, but Kol killed them before Jeremy could. Elena asked Klaus to help keep Jeremy safe from Kol who was trying to kill him to keep them from following the hunters mark. Kol also compelled Damon to kill Jeremy so he got locked up in the basement for a little while.

Kol tried to cut Jeremy's arms off to keep the tattoo from spreading, so Elena killed him. Klaus was going to burn them both in the house, but Bonnie managed to trap him in Elena's living room with a spell. Because Kol's whole sire line died, it completed Jeremy's mark. Klaus was stuck there while the others, besides Caroline and Tyler, went to Nova Scotia to find Silas and the cure. Tyler told Klaus that his plan was to cure Klaus and kill him. Caroline cleaned up Kol's body while Tyler taunted Klaus on exactly how he was going to kill him. Klaus took his anger at Tyler out on Caroline by biting her. Tyler left Caroline there to make Klaus watch her die. Klaus couldn't let her die and cured her. The next day Klaus, Caroline and Tyler used a hunter's sword to decode in Jeremy's tattoo, revealing that there is only one dose of the cure. Because Tyler tried to kill him, Klaus ran him out of town. Katherine killed Jeremy by feeding Silas his blood in order to get the cure out of his mummified hands.

Jeremy's death put Elena in unbearable pain and Damon told her to turn her humanity off not knowing it would break the sire bond. She burned her house down with Jeremy in it.

"Can't say I haven't thought about burning my house down." She commented.

"After everything I just told you that's what you comment on?" he asked putting his chin on her shoulder as he looked at her face. She just shrugged. "No comment's on the fact that I slaughtered my hybrids and killed your ex-boyfriends mother?"

"I get why you killed your hybrids, but on the flip side I get why they tried to kill you." he poked her in the side. "What? For someone who wanted them for a back up family you kind of treated them like slaves." She told him bluntly. "As for Tyler's mom…she had her nice moments like trying to help me win Miss Mystic, and she loved her son, but mostly she was just a bitch. I've lost count of how many times I've heard her call me trash. Pretty sure if you didn't kill her I would have eventually." She told him then turned around and straddled his lap.

Things were comfortably quiet for a little while as they both just enjoyed being with each other. "Happy birthday, by the way, I'm sorry I did not get you anything."

"You're the only birthday present I need." She told him then wrinkled her nose. "That sounded far less cheesy in my head."

He smiled. "I do not mind cheesy."

She glared at him playfully. "You secretly love romantic chick flicks don't you?"

He laughed looking a little embarrassed. "Maybe." Katie smiled and looked at her hands exploring his torso. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Nope. I like it." she told him then leaned down and kissed his neck.

"So what do you want for your birthday?" he asked as she kept placing random kisses over his neck and chest.

"An art lesson." She answered surprising him.

"The woman that colored in a coloring book to pass art class wants a lesson?" he asked and she stopped showering him with kisses to look at his face.

"I would have liked to learn, but the teacher sucked and it was kind of nice to have a break from my other, harder, classes." She told him as her hands slid over his shoulders and down his arms to his hands that rested on her thighs and grabbed them in hers. "I want to know more about the things you're passionate about." She admitted as she pressed her palms to his.

He threaded his fingers through hers and pulled her into him catching her lips with his in a kiss that slowly deepened. After a few minutes of making out he let go of her hands, grabbed her shirt and pulled it over her head. He looked into her eyes as his hands found her breasts and kneaded them as he kissed her neck, his actions pulling a sigh from her as he slid down to lay on his back. She grabbed his chin and kissed his lips then kissed down his jaw line to his neck, pulling a sigh out of him with her touch. Her hands explored his torso as she kissed his collarbone, the hollow of his neck, the center of his chest then surprised him as she kept kissing lower, making his breath quicken when she threw the covers over her head and took in into her mouth. The grunt her action pulled out of him made her laugh only giving him that much more pleasure.

She was just started to have fun when he threw the covers off of her, grabbed her chin and pulled her up for a heated kiss. "Do you have any idea how much I've missed you?" he asked between peppering kisses over her neck and shoulders and his hand caressed her back.

"Show me?" she asked and he pulled away from kissing her to look her in the eyes as he rolled them over. She wrapped one arm around his torso while her other hand held the back of his neck. As he hovered over her, braced on his hand on the bed next to her head, he slipped his hand down her chest. He didn't break eye contact as he moved his hand to her breast, kneading it before he pinched her nipple making her moan and dig her fingertips into his back. Desperate to have his lips back on her she pulled him to her for a needy passionate kiss. As they kissed his hand moved down her stomach then slipped into her shorts and panties. His talented fingers pulled a whimper from her that made him pull back and look her in the eyes as he pleasured her.

After a minute she pushed off the rest of her clothes, grabbed his wrist, pulled his hand away, rolled them over then sat up. When she slipped his slick fingers into her mouth he thought he was going to lose it, but he managed to hold back as he slipped them out and sat up. He grabbed her beast in his hand as she slid her hands over his toned arms. A growl left his lips as he attacked neck with kisses and nibbles making her laugh then sigh before he whooshed them around and sank into her.

A sigh left her lips as she squeezed her eyes closed and wrapped her legs around him. His sighs and groans only fueled her fire just as her whimpers and moans fueled his. He could tell she was getting close and as if on cure she sighed, "God, Klaus."

"Come for me, sweetheart." His words tipped her over the edge making her dig her fingernails into his back and tighten her legs around him. The slight pain of her nails in his back and intense pleasure of her orgasm sent him tumbling after her and pulled a loud grunt from him, making her smile as he led his head fall to her chest.

After they had both come down from the high he picked up his head and looked her in the eyes. As she moved her hands from his back to his chest she saw the blood on her finger nails and her smile faded. "Did I _scratch_ you?" she asked taking her hand off of him a little shocked at what she had done.

"Mmhmm." he hummed and started kissing her chest absentmindedly.

"Did it hurt?" she asked still looking at the blood on her fingertips.

"Only a little." He answered.

"I'm sorry. I've never done anything like that before." She told him.

He stopped kissing her to look her in the eyes. "Pain and pleasure sometimes go hand in hand." She just looked at him with a frown. "It's fine. I liked it." he assured her.

"If you say so." She told him deciding not to harp on it. He rolled off of her to lie on his side, turned off the lamp then pulled the covers over them. He smiled to himself when she tucked herself into his chest, intertwined her legs with his and wrapped an arm around his waist. She was being clingier than usual and he couldn't help but love it.

He thought she was just reveling in the calm after the storm like she used to, but after a few minutes her breathing changed and he looked down to see that she had fallen asleep. So he kissed the top of her head and let sleep over come him, happy that she was back in his arms.

**A/N:** So I don't know how many of you have been affected by hurricane Laura, but my family and I were. We currently do not have lights, the skirting around my mobile home is blown off the house as well as some of the shingles blown off the roof, really it could have been worse, we were on the "better" side of the storm. So if any of my readers were affected, my heart goes out to you. I am currently staying with my grandmother so I may not have an update next week. I don't have as much time to write these days.

**A/A/N: **I hope this made sense. I suck at writing fight scenes. In case you don't know who Dahlia is, she's Esters sister. Ester went to her and asked her for a fertility spell, in return Dahlia asked for Esters first born as well as her children's first born children and so on and so on. Dahlia wanted the children to use them for their power.


	38. Chapter 38

**A/N:** Smutty smut warning including oral and fingering. If the smut ever gets to be too much just let me know and I'll cut it out.

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 38**

"So you and Klaus?" Bonnie asked from where she and Caroline sat at a table in the grill.

"We're not really putting a label on it, but yeah, me and Klaus." Katie shrugged then took a drink of her coffee. "So what's the cover story for where I've been?"

"You went to stay with your aunt again." Caroline told her.

"Right, the imaginary aunt." Katie nodded.

"Caroline compelled you into the school districts home schooling program before my dad had put vervain in the town's water supply." Bonnie told her. "We've been tag teaming your work for you."

Katie couldn't help but smile. "You guys are awesome."

"We kind of slacked off when we thought you were going to die, though, so you have a little catching up to do." Caroline informed her, but Katie waved her off. "I also ordered your cap and gown."

"I seriously don't know how to thank you guys." Katie said as she looked down at her coffee.

"Well you can start by sticking around and helping us keep Elena from eating anyone." Bonnie said then took a drink of her coffee.

"Okie dokie." She told them with a nod.

"So are you planning on coming back to school?" Bonnie asked.

"Yeah your spot is still open on the cheer squad if you want it." Caroline added.

"I was thinking about home schooling before everything happened. I think I'll stick with it." Katie said with a shrug.

"But you'll still come to prom and graduation right?" Caroline asked with wide eyes.

"Definitely. Klaus already picked me out a dress from his creepy trophy case of family collectables. It's vintage and very glamorous." Katie answered making Caroline smile.

"So we're seriously not going to talk about the fact that you've been with _Klaus_?" Bonnie asked circling back to the topic Katie had purposely changed the subject from.

"Yeah, how is he?" Caroline asked with a devious smile and a wiggle of her brows.

"Not was I was talking about, Caroline." Bonnie told her with a scolding look.

"Oh come on, even you have to wonder what the bad boys are like in bed." Caroline told her with an eyes roll. "So…spill."

Katie laughed and shook her head. "I'm not going to answer that in the middle of the grill where anyone could overhear." She answered and jerked her heat a Damon, sitting at the bar with a glass of bourbon in his hand on one sitting at the empty stool next to him.

"Right." Caroline said with a disappointed nod. "But he was good right?"

Katie sighed and let her head fall forward. "She's not going to stop until you answer her." Bonnie pointed out.

"Yes, he is really, _really_, good." Katie answered reluctantly. "There, you happy?"

"No, but it will do until I can get better detail." Caroline said with a smile. Katie let her believe she would get those details eventually.

~*That Night*~

"So where are we going?" Katie asked Klaus who sat in the armchair in her room watching her look through her wardrobe. He was wearing a suit and no tie, so she knew she should wear something dressy, but how dressy she didn't know.

"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you would it?" he asked and she turned to look at him.

"Something you should know about me…I don't like surprises." She told him with a tight smile. "Plus, if you don't tell me where we're going I won't know what to wear."

He walked over and pulled a little black dress and black lace Louboutin heels out of her wardrobe and set them on the bed. "Problem solved." She looked and him and took a deep breath. "What, Love?"

"Please tell me where we're going?" she asked again.

"You're just going to have to trust me." he told her as he watched her put on the dress then turn her back to him and he zipped it for her. She walked over to her vanity and opened the jewelry box and grabbed a random necklace then turned around to find him standing right behind her. "Do you trust me?"

She took a deep breath and let it out. Just because she had came back from the dead and managed to get a clean start didn't mean she trusted easily again, but with him…she was cautiously trusting. "Yes."

"Good." He watched her put on the heels. "Are you ready?" he held his arm out for her and she looped hers through it.

* * *

"An art exhibit." She said with a smile as they walked into the building. "I should have known. I did ask for an art lesson." She told him as they walked around one of the dividers that paintings hung on.

"This isn't the lesson, just something I wanted to do with you." he told her as they walked around looking at the painting's, sculptures and photos. "See anything that speaks to you?" he was paying more attention to her than the art.

"That one." She pointed to a landscape painting of a grassy clearing over hung by tree limbs. Blue, purple, orange and pink flowers colored the ground. A waterfall could be seen off in the distance.

"I didn't take you for the landscape type." He told her taking in how her eyes concentrated on the painting.

"It reminds me of home." She told him and for a second he was confused, then he remembered that she lived in Ireland in the 1800's. "There was a water fall behind my parent's house. My sister and I would run there to get away from Father. He had an irrational fear of water so we knew we'd be safer there, behind the waterfall, at least until night came and we had to go home."

"Do you want it?" he asked.

She looked away from the painting to see him standing behind her with his hands tucked behind his back. "Is it for sale?"

"Anything is for sale if the price is high enough." He told her with a devious smile.

She rolled her eyes and gave him with a smile. "I want it if the artist is _willing_ to part with it." she told him pointedly. He gave her a big smile and walked off to find the artist.

When he got done procuring the painting from the more than willing artist and arranging for it to be delivered to the mansion he found Katie staring at photograph in thought, her fingers fiddling with the necklace that rested on her chest. He stood back looking at her distant eyes that took in thick clear pieces of broken glass spread out over black sand, a dark cloudy sky in the background. "Why does that fascinate you so?" he asked making her jump, not realizing he had found her.

She looked back at the photo. "I know it's just broken glass, but…for some reason it makes me feel lost. Like I don't know who I am and I don't know what to do about it." she told him then took a deep breath and looked at him. "So was the artist willing to sell?"

"Yes. Your painting will be delivered to the mansion tomorrow." He told her with a smile.

"Did you see anything you liked?" she asked.

"Yes, but I believe she is already mine." He told her making her smile and blush a little. "Are you ready for dinner?" he held his arm out for her and she took it.

* * *

He brought her to a five star restaurant and got them an intimate table in the corner. "So is medical school still something you wish to pursue?" he asked then took a bite of his stake.

"I don't know." She paused to take a bite of her side salad. "I only ever wanted to be a doctor because I wanted to prove to everyone in Mystic Falls that I could make something of myself and be more than the slutty piece of trash they labeled me as."

"And now?" he asked curiously.

"Now I'm just want to make it to graduation in one piece." She answered honestly. "If I still feel like going to college for something by the time summer is over then I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

"We haven't discussed the cure." He said making her tilt her head.

"Yes we have. There's a cure… everyone but Rebekah agrees Elena should have it." she stated.

"But would you take it if I got it for you?" he asked making her stop eating and think.

She had once told Damon that she didn't want to be a vampire because she didn't want to watch her friends grow up, start families and move on without her. That she wanted a husband and a family, but so much had changed since then. When she said that, she didn't remember that she'd already had that life. Now she just wanted to have fun and live freely for a little while. "Do you think I should take it?"

"I don't want to influence your decision." He told her with a tilt of his head.

"Have you forgotten who you're talking to?" she asked with a playful smile. "I know my answer. I just want to know if you would want me to take it." She told him then took a bite of her salad.

"If I'm being selfish, no, I don't want you to take it." he answered. "But I also want you to get all the things you want out of life and if a human man and a human family is what you want then I wouldn't stop you." she smiled at him then looked down and played with her salad with her fork. "So are you going to answer me?"

"I don't want it. Even if there were multiple doses, I wouldn't take it." he gave her a look that said he didn't believe her. "I've had a human man and a human family…the human _life_. Now I've been reincarnated and come back from a shattered soul, I didn't go through all of that just to turn into a pumpkin again."

Klaus gave her a smile. "I'm glad to hear that." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black velvet box with a red bow tied around it. "I know you've already received two necklaces from previous suitors and I did not want to be cliché, but I noticed you don't wear bracelets or ear rings often. You also reach for your neck when you're thinking about something. So…" he placed the box on the table and slid it to her. She picked it up, slid the ribbon off and popped the lid open to see a silver pendant made to look like a wax seal stamped with a phoenix, it's wings spread as it soared up, a dazzling trillion cut diamond grasped in it's talons. It hung off a thin silver Singapore chain. "Happy birthday, Little Phoenix."

This necklace felt different than the others she'd received. It wasn't meant to represent them as a couple or protect her like Damon's had been, it wasn't a show of how he would love her forever like Elijah's had been. It was simply something he thought represented her as a person and if she was being honest, she kind of felt as if she _had_ risen from the ashes of her old life. All she had to do now was spread her wings and soar. After a few minutes she heard him clear his throat and when she looked up she realized then that her eyes had watered.

After clearing her throat and blinking back the tears she managed to say, "It's perfect. Thank you." As she took it out of the box he got up from the table and took the necklace she was wearing off, put it on the table then took his necklace from her and put it around her neck. When he moved around her to sit back down she caught the front of his jacket and pulled him down for a kiss. When it broke he sat back down and Katie looked around to see people jerk their eyes back down to their plates. "People are staring at us." she told him with a smile.

"They probably think I'm some kind predator…Praying on the sweet, beautiful and innocent." he told her then smiled.

"Or that you're simply too old for me." She said as she picked up her wine glass and took a drink. "Mmm, no, I got it…" she told him with a smile as she pointed at him still holding her glass in her hand, "They think you're my sugar daddy." His jaw dropped and he smiled. "Older guy plying a young girl with a fancy dinner, wine, jewelry…" She finished off her wine then sat her glass down. "So if anything, I'm praying on you Mister rich, charming and devilishly handsome." He laughed making her smile.

* * *

Klaus opened her car door for her then offered her his arm. "You know I remember a time, not long ago, when you refused to take my arm when I offered." He thought out loud as she slid her arm through his.

"Do you want to go back to that?" she asked with a look up at him through her lashes as they headed to the mansion.

"No, I much prefer to have you willingly at my side as opposed to turning your nose up at me." he told her as they walked into the house.

"Oh, I can still turn my nose up at you from your side." she told him with a smile that let him know she was messing with him. "So I have a question." She stated as she walked into the parlor and tossed her clutch onto the coffee table.

"I may have an answer." He replied as he watched her sit down on the couch.

"Tonight was a date right?" she asked as she pulled off the thousand dollar heels. He hummed a positive answer. "So…we dating?"

He walked over and sat down next to her and pulled his leg up on the couch to face her. "If that is what you want."

His answer caused a fleeting smile to grace her lips as she looked down and turned to face him, folding her legs modestly to the side in the short dress. "You always make everything about me. You give me whatever I want and if I'm being honest I love how much you dote on me." her words made a small smile pull at the corners of his lips. "When we first started this I made my intentions clear and you went along with it. Even though I got the feeling that there was something you weren't saying. I didn't ask because I was happy and I didn't want to possibly ruin it. It kind of felt like I was using you and you were letting me, but I don't want to be selfish anymore. Not with you. So what do _you_ want?"

"What did you think I would have to say that would ruin your happiness?" he asked and her eyes fell to look at her knees.

"Three little words that can do more damage than a nuclear bomb." She answered then looked back up at him.

"I know you're not ready for that. You've loved too hard too fast and I understand why you are unable to love again so soon." He told her then grabbed her hand in his. "But you asked me what I want. So I will tell you." he brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "You gave me an easy out and told me that you wouldn't tie me down if I wanted Caroline. You didn't let me say that I never wanted her. She was a distraction while you were with Elijah because I didn't think I could have you." Even though she had told herself she was over feeling like she came in second to one friend or the other, his words gave her a sense of pride. No one had ever chosen her over Caroline or Elena. Even Damon had chosen Caroline at first. "Elijah and Damon are your first loves. When you are ready, I want to be your last." When a tear slipped down her cheek he brushed it away. "I only want you and I want you to only want me, but that does not mean I want to tie you down. You," he looked down at her necklace then back into her eyes, "Little Phoenix, have risen from the ashes once only to have your wings clipped by the men in your life. You've recently risen again and I will not let anyone, myself included, keep you from making the sky yours."

He wanted to be exclusive yet still let her make her own decisions and be herself. He also wasn't going to rush her when it came to confessing their love for one another. It made a smile spread over her lips, but she couldn't find the words to tell him how much he and what he'd just said meant to her. Since she couldn't find words, she decided to let her actions speak and grabbed his suit jacket and pulled him down for a kiss, pouring her every emotion into it. As they kissed he pulled her into his lap, holding her black cotton covered sides. When the kiss broke she looked him in the eyes then moved her lips close to his ear and whispered, "I only want you, Big Bad Wolf." She kissed down his jaw line and pecked him on the lips before she looked him in the eyes again. "I'm yours."

It wasn't a proclamation of love, but it was one step closer. "And I'm yours." his hands slid up her back, pulling her closer into him as he started kissing her neck, pulling a sigh from her lips. While his lips placed loving kisses up and down her neck and shoulders, her hands worked on the buttons of the black dress shirt he wore under his suit jacket.

"You look good in a suit, by the way." She told him as he pulled away from her neck and slid his hands down to grip her thighs.

"You have a thing for guys in suits don't you?" he asked with lust in his eyes.

"No. I said you look good, not that it's my favorite look on you." she corrected him. "If I have a thing for anything it's men who are older than me."

"So what is your favorite look on me?" he asked as he slipped his hands up the skirt of her dress.

"Your everyday look." She answered. "Jeans, belt and a Henley shirt, preferably a short sleeved one so I can see your arms, but long sleeved is just as sexy." She pushed his shirt and jacket down his arms.

"You like my arms?" he asked as he pulled his them out of the sleeves and wrapped them around her waist.

"Yep, and I like your lips just as much as your hands." She pecked him on his lips. "And I like this." The slipped her hands down his chest and used her pointer fingers to trace the v of muscles that led down into his pants and hooked her fingers under his belt. "There's not a single part of your body that doesn't turn me on. I even find your feet attractive which is weird because feet usually gross me out." She told him with a smile before her eyes turned admiring. "You're perfect," she kissed him on the lips, the cheek, "strong," the ear, "romantic," a whisper of a laugh left his lips as she kissed his neck, "sweet," she kissed across his chest, "Sexy," then cupped one side of his neck in her hand as he kissed up to the other side of his neck, "protective without being controlling," she kissed to his ear, "and _really_ turned on right now." she whispered then bit his earlobe as she rocked her hips against him.

"It's no wonder when my gorgeous girlfriend is showering me with affection." He told here as he slid his hands up her thighs to grab her butt. Klaus calling her his girlfriend made her heart skip and beat and butterflies to kick up in the pit of her stomach. She pulled back and looked him in the eyes with a smile. He smiled back and pulled her into him for a soft kiss that slowly deepened.

Their hands explored each other as they made out. After a while he pulled the hair stick out of her hair letting it spin out of the neat bun she'd twisted it into to fall around her shoulders. He slid his fingers through it and held the back of her head as his other hand grabbed the zipper of her dress and slowly pulled it down. His hands on her bare back pulled a sigh from her as he slid them up, grabbed the straps of the dress and pulled them down her arms revealing the black lace strapless bra she wore underneath.

With the dress out of the way he kissed down her neck and chest to the valley of her breasts. As he did she slipped her fingers through his hair and let her head fall back with a sigh. Not in the mood to bother with the hooks, Klaus grabbed the cups of her bra and pulled, ripping it in the middle then tossed it to the side. A gasp left her lips when he closed his mouth around her nipple. The other breast got cupped in his hand, kneading it before he gave it a pinch pulling a moan from her. His hand replaced his lips as he pulled back and looked into her lust clouded eyes.

Her hands slid down his chest to his belt and started unbuckling it, not breaking eye contact with him as she unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans then slid off of the couch and pulled them off of him, catching him in her mouth as soon as he sprang free from the tight confinements of his boxers. A moan left his lips as he let his head fall back onto the couch and put his hand on the back of her head, gently fisting her hair in his hand.

She was having fun finding new ways to pull sighs and grunts of pleasure from him when she felt him give her hair a tug signaling her to stop. "You keep that up and I won't last much longer." He told her in a huff and she pulled her head up with a pop causing his body to twitch and a smile to form on her lips.

"I'll take that as a compliment." She stood up and pulled her dress that had gotten bunched up around her waist, over her head while he pulled her red lace cheeky panties down. She was going to straddle him again, but he grabbed her hips, turned her around and pulled her back to sit in his lap and lean back against him. His lips placed kisses and nibbles along her neck while one hand found her breast and the other slid slowly and teasingly down her stomach over her inner thigh pushing her leg to the side before he finally dipped into her core. "Klaus." Her back arched as one hand grabbed his over her beast and the other reached back and imbedded itself into his hair.

"You like that?" he asked, his voice deep and low in her ear.

"I love it." she replied, her voice just the opposite as she writhed against him. A laugh left his perfect lips before he growled and bit her neck not breaking the skin. He knew she was getting close. So after a few more second he pulled his hand away, offering her his slick fingers. She grabbed his wrist and sucked them into her mouth, tasting herself. He hummed in her ear, "Such a naughty girl." She just laughed and slid his clean fingers out of her mouth and put his hand on her chest.

She shifted to the side and pulled his lips to hers. As they kissed she slid her hand down and started touching herself. When he realized what she was doing he grabbed her wrist, pulled her hand away and took her fingers into his mouth. She bit her lip as she watched her fingers slip from his mouth. Unable to handle anymore foreplay he grabbed her hips, lined her up with him and slowly lowered her down on him.

She bit her lip and let her head fall back onto his shoulder. He started kissing her neck as he rocked into her. One of his hands played with her breast while the other gripped her outer thigh. When he noticed one of her hands making its way down he grabbed it. "No cheating, Sweetheart." He threaded his fingers through hers and held her hand against his thigh to keep her from touching herself as he rocked into her. After a few minutes he moved her around to straddle him and she instantly caught his lips with hers. A few minutes later he was getting close and he could tell she was too. This time neither of them said a word as they looked into each other's eyes and let pure ecstasy consume them.

As they came down from their high, he absentmindedly caressed her back and she kissed his neck and held his sides. "I think I've already said it once today, but just incase I haven't, I'm going to say it again. You're…amazing."

"Best you've ever had?" he asked being cocky.

"Definitely top five." She answered as she pulled back and gave him a smirk. He rolled his eyes knowing she'd only ever been with five different men. "The answer to that question will only do one of two things, give you a big head or hurt your feelings. I'm not looking to do either."

"At least tell me I'm better than Tyler." He told her as he wrapped his arms around her and bit her neck playfully.

"You are definitely better than Tyler." She laughed. "But in his defense we were both still human. Now that he's a hotshot hybrid I'm sure he's a lot better."

"Easy." He told her in a warning tone.

She laughed. "Jealous?" she asked with an innocent tone.

"Possibly." He answered and she leaned her head back to look at him.

"You are aware that I'm talking about _Tyler Lockwood_, right? The douche bag wolf boy turned hybrid that tried to kill you?" she asked.

"The same douche bag that was going to ask you to marry him?" he asked making her realized that he'd watched the dvd.

"Yeah, but he didn't." she turned around and sat on the opposite end of the couch, her legs outstretched on top of his. "Besides, I would've said no anyway."

"Would you have?" he asked doubting her.

"Yeah, I mean I loved him and I liked being with him, but… my heart wasn't fully in it and because of that I wasn't a good girlfriend to him." she admitted as she picked up his foot and started massaging it.

"How so?" he asked curiously, clearly liking her messaging his foot even though feet grossed her out.

"The background photo of me and Damon kissing that you saw on my phone…" she said and he nodded remembering it all too well. "That was taken while Tyler and I were still together. Then after I turned and before I broke with him I slept with Damon." She dropped his foot and grabbed the other one. "So I guess you should keep in mind that I have a history of being unfaithful."

"I should also keep in mind that you cheated on Tyler because you weren't completely happy with him." he told her as he grabbed her foot and kissed her big toe before he started massaging it. "I on the other hand know how to make and keep you happy."

"Oh yeah?" she asked with a laugh and took her foot out of his talented hand then lean forward on her hands and knees to be face to face with him. "What makes you so sure, Big Bad Wolf?" she pecked him on the lips.

"Because I've been at it for the past six months and you're still here." He pointed out.

"Huh." He huffed realizing he was right. "Feels more like three months to me, but I see what you're saying none the less." She pecked him on the lips then stood from the couch and picked up her clothes. When she picked up her bra remembering that he broke it she sighed. "Can you do me a favor and not destroy my bras?" she asked. "It's hard to find bras that are pretty _and_ actually hold me up." He gave her a smart ass solute and a closed lipped smile and she threw the bra at him making him laugh.

* * *

Katie woke up to find that she wasn't tucked into Klaus's chest like she usually was and his side of his bed was empty. "Klaus?" she groaned as she sat up and looked around, her eyes landed on a note on the bedside table and she picked it up. "I had to leave for a bit. You looked so peaceful I did not want to wake you. –Klaus." She read his pretty cursive words aloud.

After tucking the note away in her room for safe keeping she threw on a robe and headed down to the kitchen. She was sitting at the bar sipping on a cup of coffee when she heard Klaus come in. "Good morning." He told her as he turned her around in the barstool then placed his hands on the bar behind her.

"Good morning." She told him and kissed him back when he pecked her on the lips. "Where'd you go?"

"A wolf friend of Tyler's needed rescuing. She has information about Katerina that I need. So I helped her, she will be staying here until Katerina's lackeys are no longer after her or I have the information I need. Which ever comes first."

"Okay then." She told him as she wrapped her legs around his.

"You're not mad that I brought a girl home?" he asked looking into her eyes with a smirk.

"What am I, your mother?" she asked with a small laugh. "No. I'm not mad or jealous. Believe it or not… when it comes to us, I trust you." she slid her hand around to the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. "Where is she?"

"Resting." He answered.

"Good, then she won't walk in on this." She pulled him down for a more heated kiss that made him pick her up and carry her to the study.

They were making out on the leather couch when they heard a knock on the door to the room. Katie moved from his lap and straightened her tank top while he answered it. "What an unpleasant surprise." Klaus said as Damon walked into the room with a stack of papers in his hand.

"So I just came up with a list." Damon told them then turned his back on Katie where she still sat on the couch to look at Klaus. "It's called things you suck at." Klaus just folded his hands in front of him with a small smirk. "Number one: Finding Katherine, ever." Klaus's smirk fell to a look of aggravation. "Number two: Covering up your secret phone conversations with that little back stabber Hayley." Damon waved the papers at him then turned and tossed them on the coffee table. "So where is she and what does she know about Katherine?"

"I should help you?" Klaus asked with a motion between himself and Damon. "After you lot killed my brother and imprisoned me in the Gilbert living room?"

"You might want to prioritize, Klaus, you have much bigger problems." Damon said raising his voice. Katie stood up and looked past Damon to Klaus. "Katherine has the cure. My guess is she's gonna want to cram it down your throat. You help me find Katherine, I'll get the cure, I'll give it to Elena, everybody wins. Just let me question Hayley about Katherine."

Klaus gave Damon a smirk as he walked over to the couch. "Can't help you mate, Hayley's off limits." He sat down and pulled Katie to straddle his lap. "Although I did have a run-in with a vampire who may know where Katerina is." He slid his hand over Katie's leg and up to her thigh. "Too bad for you I bit halfway though his bloody neck. He probably won't have much time for chit-chat." Katie started kissing his neck, no longer caring that Damon was there. "You can see yourself out." Damon made a disgusted sound before Katie heard him walk away and the door to the room shut.

After a while of making out Katie looked at the clock in the room. "Not to cut our fun short, but I have to get to the school. Caroline asked me to come to the cheer competition and help keep an eye on Elena who has randomly decided that she wanted my old spot on the cheer team." she slid off him and stood up. "Plus it will probably be easier for you to get information out of Hayley if I'm not around." He gave her an interested look. "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar." She told him with a smile. "Damon used to flirt info out of women all the time. It never bothered me because I trusted him, and as I said before I trust you. As long as you don't kiss her or sleep with her we're good." She finished with a smile then grabbed her keys off of the table. "And if you decide to use vinegar I won't be around to see it. As much as I like your diabolical side, I don't think I'm ready to become a spectator just yet."

"You will never cease to surprise me." he told her as he stood up and tucked his hands behind his back.

"And it will never cease to amaze me that I keep surprising you." she pecked him on the lips then turned her back on him. "See you later."

* * *

After the competition Elena decided to throw a party at the boarding house, but Katie went home instead. As she was going into the mansion, Hayley was leaving. Neither of them said anything to each other. Katie found Klaus in the parlor with a drink in his hand. "So how did that go?"

"I wined and dined her, got the information I needed then pissed her off when I didn't put out like he expected." He told her with a smirk.

"Yeah she looked pissed when we passed." Katie laughed and flopped down next to him and took the drink out of his hand.

"How was the competition?" he asked watching her take a drink.

"Elena fed on a cheerleader from another school, just as I expected her to. Then when Caroline called her out on it, Elena dropped her during the routine." Katie told him then took another drink and passed him the glass back. "According to Caroline, Damon tried to use his sire bond to get Elena to behave, but I don't think they realized that because the sire bond stems from emotions the bond is broken without them. So what they thought was Elena behaving and joining in on school activities was really her finding vervain free bodies to feed on." Klaus didn't say anything. "Sorry, I'm sure you could care less about teen gossip."

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't care." He pointed out. "I was just thinking about that one time you got on stage and sang karaoke." He told her.

"Eesh." She comments as she moved around to lie on the couch with her head in his lap.

"Not eesh." He scolded as he started playing with her hair. "You were good. You had the attention of every man in the room, some women too."

"Stop." She laughed and smacked him in the chest with the back of her hand.

"Sing for me?" he asked surprising her.

"I don't know…" she drawled.

"If you can sing in a room full of strangers you can sing for me." He pointed out.

"That was when I was fearless." She pointed out.

"It's just me, Love." He told her quietly. "Please?" he looked down at her with puppy dog eyes and his bottom lip poked out the slightest bit.

She couldn't help but smile at him. "You and those damn eyes and pouty lips." She sighed. "Fine. What do you want to hear?"

"There was a song on your phone I grew fond of. It was in your top songs list, from some tv show soundtrack." He told her not being able to remember the song.

"Most likely the Nashville soundtrack." She commented as she pulled her phone out of her back pocket then started going though her songs.

"It was a duet." He added.

"When the Right One Comes Along?" Katie asked and he shook his head no. "Fade Into You?"

"That one." He told her and she smiled a bright judgy smile at him. "What?"

"You're such a sappy romantic." She told him and he rolled his eyes with a smile.

"Are you gonna sing it or not?" he asked impatiently.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll sing." She told him with a wave of her hand then closed her eyes and started singing the slow love song. When he brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek she opened her eyes and looked into his. The look in them caused her heart to skip a beat. When she got to the last time of the song she reached up and placed her hand on his cheek. "There'll be no trace that one was once two after I fade into you."

"Thank you, sweetheart." He told her as he took her hand from his cheek and kissed the under side of her wrist. Her eyes slipped closed and reveled in the intimate touch.

* * *

The next morning Klaus and Katie walked into the boarding house, finding Caroline cleaning up the mess after the party last night. Not knowing they were looking Caroline picked up a cup, sniffed it then drank it. "Care, I know we're vamps and all, but can I just say…ew?"

"Desperate times?" Klaus asked with his hands tucked behind his back.

"What is he doing here?" Caroline asked Katie.

"Not judging you for starters." Klaus answered for himself. "Although if you are determined to get drunk then perhaps I might recommend something a little more sanitary?" Caroline drank what was left in the cup she had in her hand then threw it away. "Well then, you showed me." Klaus told her with a smile.

Katie punched him in the shoulder then pointed at him. "Stop it."

"Yes ma'am." He told her with a smirk that made Katie roll her eyes.

"Seriously Care, what's wrong?" Katie asked as she walked over and started helping her clean up.

"Your boyfriend is what's wrong." She grabbed a cup and threw it into the trashcan aggressively. "Because of him, Tyler gave Matt the deed to his house. He's not coming back."

"Oh…" Katie said then started looking around the house feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"Tyler made it his life's mission to kill me." Klaus told her as he walked over to the girls. "You can't hate me for driving him away."

"Oh I can. And I do. Now if you don't mind I'd like to get back to spiraling." Caroline told him. "So go away."

"We were kind of invited." Katie spoke up.

"I asked them to be here." Stefan said as he walked into the room. "We need their help. I think Silas is in Mystic falls."

"What makes you think that?" Katie asked with a frown.

"Blood has gone missing the Mystic Falls and Grove hills hospitals." Stefan answered as Klaus walked around to the table behind the couch and poured two drinks.

"So some blood went missing from some hospitals." He handed one to Katie and she took it and sat down on the arm of the couch. "What about Elena? Vampires with their humanity off tend to overindulge in human blood, or were you the exception?" Klaus turned from the table and looked at Stefan.

"It's not Elena." Stefan answered putting his hand on his hip.

"Well, let's say for a moment that it was Silas. I'm struggling to see how this effects us." he sat down on the couch and wrapped his hand around Katie's waist.

"Look, Silas wants to die and be reunited with his one true love, but he's supernatural, so if he takes the cure and dies, he gets stuck on the other side." Stefan explained.

"How Shakespearian." Klaus commented with a cocky smile then took a sip of his drink.

"But if he destroys the other side all together, he can take the cure, die, and pass on. But in destroying it every dead supernatural being will return to our side." Stefan's words brought a frown to Katie's face and she threw back her drink.

"That means every werewolf, every witch, every vampire. I wonder how many of those you personally killed. Care yet?" Caroline asked Klaus from where she stood behind Stefan.

"My interest is piqued." Klaus told Caroline then looked at Stefan. "How do we stop him?"

"Bonnie said Silas needs to complete 3 massacres to do this spell." Stefan answered. "Before professor Shane died, he convinced the pastor to blow up the council. Next he had you kill your hybrids and now he only needs one more massacre. So if he's here, that's what he's doing. We need to find him."

* * *

"So what are we even looking for?" Caroline asked as the four of them walking into Professor Shane's apartment.

"Well, if Shane really was working with Silas chances are he was helping him plan his next move." Stefan answered as they all started walking around, looking at all the random stuff.

"Where, on his evil villain to do list? Steal blood, perform 3 massacres, pick up dry cleaning?" Caroline asked.

"Actually not to nit-pick, but we evil villain's usually use minions to pick up our dry cleaning, that sort of thing." Klaus spoke up.

Katie bit her lips closed to keep her snippy comment at Klaus from coming out in front of Stefan and Caroline. "Why is he necessary again?" Caroline asked making Katie smirk.

"Well, we don't know what Silas can do. So if we do have to go head to head with him, an original hybrid who can't die might come in handy." Stefan answered.

"Besides, Stefan and I work well together, or at least we did in the twenties." Klaus said as he walked over to the desk chair and sat down on it.

"Well, granted my emotions were off." Stefan added.

"And that's why you were more fun." Klaus said as Katie walked over and pulled herself up to sit on the desk facing him. Normally she would be all for snooping for helpful information, but in this case she had no clue what she'd be looking for. "Just as Damon is probably relishing in Elena's emotionless company in new York."

"My brother knows what he's doing." Stefan told Klaus in a hard voice.

Katie bit her lips closed and Klaus smirked at her knowing she was fighting hard to keep her comments to herself. "Does he?" Klaus asked. "Don't underestimate the allure of darkness, Stefan. Even the purest hearts are drawn to it." Stefan just turned his back on them. "Still, I'm sure it will all be fine." He placed his fingertips together with a smirk and swayed back and forth in the chair. Katie took in his devious smirk when he looked up her.

"I think I found something." Caroline spoke up and walked over to the desk with a book. "Symbolic figures in the dark arts." She opened the book and put it on the desk. "Didn't Bonnie talk about expression triangles? Here." She pointed at a triangular drawing with different symbols at each of the points. Katie slipped off the desk and turned to look at the book.

"In some schools of magic such as expression, human sacrifice can be used as a focus for power. It's rumored that the addition of two supernatural sacrifices compounds the mystical energy creating an expression triangle." Stefan read from the book.

"Human's, that was the council fire." Caroline pointed at the top symbol, "Demons, Klaus' hybrid failure."

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it a failure." Klaus said dropping his clasped hands to wrap one around Katie's waist. "What's the third?"

"Oh no." Caroline said looking at the book.

"What's oh no?" Katie asked.

"Witches." Caroline answered.

"Bonnie." Katie said with a look at Caroline.

"I'll go call her." Stefan said as he pulled out his cell phone and headed out of the apartment.

Caroline grabbed a map, ruler and sharpie and laid them out on the desk. "There's been two massacres. Pastor Young's farm is here," she drew an x on the map, "and the old Lockwood cellar, where Klaus spitefully slaughtered 12 of his own hybrids, is here." She drew another x then connected them. "According to the book, the expression triangle is equilateral, putting it here." She made a third x and connected it to the first line she drew.

"Or…" Katie hip bumped Klaus and he moved to the side. She moved so that she could stand across from Caroline. She took the ruler and made a mirror image equilateral triangle to the one Caroline had drawn. "here." Katie pointed at the second location that the witch massacre could happen then looked up at Caroline.

Caroline didn't get a chance to say anything before Stefan walked in getting their attention. "Hey, what's going on did you find Bonnie?" she asked.

"No, but I talked to her dad. I think I found Silas." Stefan answered getting Katie and Klaus' attention. "He said Shane has been helping her learn to control her magic. Bonnie called her mom to get a group of witches down here to perform a ritual to help her…tonight." They all knew Shane died on the island.

"Okay." Katie looked out the window to see that the sun was starting to set. "Then I guess we don't have much time do we?"

* * *

Katie and Klaus walked through the woods headed to the location she'd marked on the map on the cell phone in Klaus' hand. "So I have a question." Katie started. "You liked Stefan better with his humanity off and you think Damon likes Elena better with her humanity off. Why didn't you like me better without my humanity?"

"Because I like you better with it." He told her simply. "Don't get me wrong, you were fun and carefree without your humanity, but all the things I like about you were gone." They came to a stop and he turned off his phone and put it in his pocket.

"And those things are?" she drawled.

"Now who's fishing for compliments?" he asked her with a smirk and she rolled her eyes and gave him a look that asked him to answer the question. "Your fire, your compassion…everything that makes you who you are."

"Mkay, second question." She started. "I told you once that I didn't know why I was drawn to you. So was that, "don't underestimate the allure of darkness" comment you made earlier, really aimed at Elena and Damon or were you talking about us?" she asked trying to mimic his accent.

He smiled at her bad attempt. "Both." He answered.

"That's not why I'm drawn to you." she told him matter-of-factly and he gave her a curious look that she was growing to like. "It's the man hidden under the monster that pulls me in. The little glimpses of your humanity that I've gotten to see. You like my humanity, I like yours."

He leaned down and kissed her then pulled back and looked around. "We're here. Although judging by the lack of witches, here is not the correct location."

"Awesome." Katie sighed now even more worried about Bonnie.

Seeing her worry he held his hand out to her. "I'm faster than you, Love."

She ignored his hand and walked around him, placed her hands on his shoulders then jumped and wrapped her legs around his torso. He grabbed her thighs and looked at her over his shoulder. She pecked him on the cheek. "Wisk me away, Big Bad Wolf."

When they found Stefan, Caroline and the witches Katie saw Bonnie laying in the center of a pentagram with her hands and feet tied to stakes that were hammered into the ground.

"They're linked, Bonnie's going to kill them." Stefan informed them.

"Not if the witches kill her first." Klaus pinned Stefan to a tree with his hands on his chest.

"Klaus, we can't let them kill her." Katie pleaded with him.

"The only way to stop the witches is to kill them and Silas gets what he wants." Klaus pointed out.

All of their eyes turned to the witch that sat at Bonnie's head, a knife raised over her head. Katie didn't know what to do, she couldn't just let them kill Bonnie, but at the same time it was like Klaus said, the only way to stop them was to kill them. Take one life or twelve? Before anyone could stop her Caroline whooshed over, grabbed the witch's hands and made her stab herself in the heart. "No!" Katie and Klaus yelled at the same time.

Stefan went to Caroline's side while Katie stood next to Klaus. "Well, you wouldn't happen to have a shovel would you?" Katie asked with a sigh.

* * *

By the time Katie and Klaus had dug twelve holes in the middle of the woods the sun had come up. Katie and Klaus did most of the work, Caroline was still in shock at what just happened. "There, twelve graves for twelve witches, like it never happened." Klaus told Caroline as he rolled his sleeves down. "Only it did happen." He grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on. "Now Silas has everything he needs to open the gates to hell on earth."

Katie slammed her shovel into the ground then grabbed her denim jacket off a fallen tree and pulled it on. "You two were just gonna let Bonnie die." Caroline told them with a glare.

"I know arithmetic isn't your strong point, but one is still less than twelve." Klaus told her.

Caroline looked at Katie. "That _one_, is our best friend."

"Yeah, Care, but those other twelve witches had best friends and probably families too." Katie pointed out.

Caroline's face turned to one of horror. "I just killed twelve people…" she whispered looking like she was about to cry.

"Okay, I'm going to drive Caroline home." Katie told Klaus who gave her a nod.

Katie spent the night with Caroline, not wanting her to be alone with herself after what she'd done.

* * *

The next morning Katie got a message from Klaus asking her to come home and that it was an emergency.

"Klaus?" Katie called as she walked through the house.

"Go away." She followed his voice a room she'd never been in and found him sitting on the floor leaning against the bench of a piano, shirtless and shaking from pain.

"I got your message, what happened?" she asked as she walked into the room.

"I need more time. Stop hounding me!" he yelled at her.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. So I'm going to let that slide." She walked over to him and kneeled down. "Now tell me what happened."

"Katie…Is it really you?" he asked shakily.

"Yeah." she drawled in confusion.

"Prove it to me." he told her.

"Um, okay." She sighed not knowing how she was supposed to prove that she was herself. So she simply kissed him then pressed her forehead to his and looked him in the eyes. "Now tell me what happened, please."

"Silas, he stabbed me with a white oak stake." He told her motioning to his back and she moved around him to see a bloody spot on his back that looked more like he'd been clawing at it than if he'd been stabbed. "There's a piece of it stuck inside me."

She moved back to kneel in front of him and push his hair back off of his sweaty forehead. "I'll see what I can do." She stood up and held her hand out to him. He took it and let her pull him up. She pulled the piano bench out and motioned for him to sit. So he sat down and leaned forward on the piano. She picked up the bloody trimming sheers off the floor, grabbed a wooden chair and set down behind him.

After an hour and a half of digging around in his back and coming up with nothing she tossed the sheers to the floor. "You're giving up." He observed.

"On those stupid sheers, yes." She said then started digging around in his back with her fingers.

"Are you using your fingers?" he asked.

"That's what she said." She joked and he heaved an aggravated sigh. "Sorry, not the time for jokes. Yes, I'm using my fingers. And if I still don't find anything then yeah, I'll give up because there's nothing in here."

"It's there." he told her still in a lot of pain.

"So why did Silas come after you any way?" she asked while poking and prodding around in his back.

"He wants me to get him the cure." He answered truthfully.

After another hour of digging in his back she gave up. "Klaus, I swear there's nothing there." She told him as she stopped poking around in his back.

"I can feel it!" he yelled as he stood up and turned to her, knocking the piano bench over. She held up her bloody hands and took a step back.

"Do you think I would just stand by and let you die?" she asked with a hard tone.

"Probably." He answered quietly not looking at her.

"I flipped my switch because I thought you died!" she yelled at him. "So believe me when I tell you there is no white oak splinter working its way to your heart. You're imagining it!"

"Do not raise your voice to me!" he told her taking a step closer to tower over her.

"I will raise my voice at you any time I damn well please you stubborn, egomaniacal douche bag!" she yelled back taking a step closer to him as she glared back at him.

Instead of lashing out at her he frowned and looked at the floor. "It's gone."

"Huh?" Katie asked quietly.

"The pain…" He reached back over his shoulder. "The pain is gone." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "It was…It was never there." He opened his eyes and looked at her, all anger gone from both of them. "You were right, I was imagining it. Silas…" he pointed at his temples with two fingers, "got inside my head." His cupped her cheek in his hand, kissed her then pressed his forehead to hers. "You took my mind off it. You brought me back, Little Phoenix."

"Well, then I guess my temper paid off for once." She said with a small smile that he returned. "So you're okay?" she asked as she pulled back and rested one hand on his shoulder and cupped his cheek in the other.

"I am. Thanks to you." he told her then rested his hands on her waist.

"So…do you really think I'd just let you die, or were you just talking out of pain and frustration?" she asked, having been a little hurt by him.

"I didn't mean it." he told her honestly. "I apologize."

"Hmm, how often does that leave your mouth?" she asked jokingly and he rolled his eyes at her. "Restock the fridge with ice cream and all is forgiven. And I'm sorry I called you a douche bag." She told him with a small smile. He tried to kiss her but she pulled away "You need a shower. Contrary to popular belief a sweaty man is not a sexy one."

"No?" he asked with a look down at himself, his jeans riding low on his hips.

"No." she answered with a small laugh and a shake of her head. When a devilish look appeared in his eyes she smiled bigger. "Klaus." She drawled with a warning tone.

"Katie." He mimicked her tone as he smiled back.

"Whatever you're thi-" her words were cut off with a yelp when he picked her up and pressed her to the wall, exaggeratedly rubbing his body against her, wiping his sweat all over her. "Klaus." She laughed his name while he kissed her neck and she wrapped her arms around him only to stick her hand in the blood and bits of flesh left behind when his back healed. "Okay, okay, you win. I'll shower with you."

**A/N:** I know this probably felt like a filler, but I needed there to be a little more Klaus/Katie bonding before the next chapter.


	39. Chapter 39

**A/N:** Long chapter ahead and there are bound to be typos.

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 39**

Katie and Klaus were spending their morning rolling around in bed, giggling and laughing when her phone started ringing. "Ignore it." he told her between kisses when she looked over at it where it sat on the bedside table.

"It could be important." She argued as she wiggled out of his grasp and grabbed her phone. She looked at it to see an unknown number and cautiously pressed talk. "Hello?"

"Scarlett, hey it's me." a male voice replied.

It took a few seconds for the voice that called her by her middle name to register. "Dad?" she asked, confused.

"Damon called and let me know you were back." He told her. "I hope its okay that he gave me your number."

"Uh, yeah its fine I'm just…surprised, I guess." She told him as she pushed herself back to lean against the headboard.

"So I was hoping that we could get together sometime and try that talk again." He told her.

"I'd like that." she told him with a small smile as she watched Klaus move to sit beside her.

"I'll come by your house this Saturday?" he asked sounding happy.

"Actually the founder's council has been cracking down on us vampires lately. They've even put vervain in the town's water supply." She informed him. "So that's probably not a good idea."

"Oh, okay." He sounded disappointed.

"Why don't I come to you?" she asked in an attempt to save the conversation. "You can text me the address of where you want to meet and I can come whenever."

"What about school?" he asked with a fatherly disapproving tone.

"I'm home schooling now." she told him. "So long as my assignments get emailed to the school, I'm free to do as I wish."

"Well, you always were independent." He commented. "So when can I be expecting you?"

"Well, I don't really have any plans so it's up to you." Katie told him feeling awkward.

"The sooner the better." He told her with a bit of a laugh to his voice.

"I'll leave tomorrow morning." She told him.

"I'll text you the address and see you then." Her father told her.

"See you then." Katie echoed back then hung up the phone. A minute later the address of a bar and grill called Rousseau's was sent to her in a text message.

"So you're leaving town?" Klaus asked.

"Yep." She answered and moved around to straddle him. "I promised my mother I would find my dad and talk things out with him. I owe it to her to give him a chance."

"Would you like me to accompany you?" he asked as he slid his hands up her thighs under the red satin night gown she wore. "New Orleans is after all one of my favorite places in the world."

"Really?" she asked a little surprised. "Why? I mean, I know you lived there once, that's why my father lives there now, but what's so special about the place?"

"It's rich in culture. They like to preserve their heritage. There's also music, art and really good food." He told her as he slipped his hands down her thighs to rest on her calves.

"Good food?" she asked as she slipped her fingertips over his chest.

"Have you ever had gumbo?" he asked and she shook her head no. "You should try it. I think you'll like it. So are you going to answer my question?"

She thought about it for a second. "This is something I need to do alone. Besides, you're needed here…Silas…impeding end of the world and all that." she answered, slipping her finger tips over his chest, drawing nonsensical shapes over his soft skin.

"Do you know how long you'll be gone?" he asked and the tone of his voice implied he was going to miss her.

"I'll definitely be back before prom." She answered. "And I'll keep in touch." She kissed him then pulled back and stood up to look at the framed, hand written letters that hung over his bed. "I've been meaning to ask you…what's with the letters?"

"I was wondering when you were going to ask." He told her and she looked down at him. "They are mementos." He answered simply a little afraid to tell her they were taken off the dead bodies of his victims.

She noticed they were all love notes. "Did you take them so you can simply relive and revel in the deaths of the people they were taken from or to serve a greater purpose like making you feel something?" she asked making him look up at her with a frown. "And there goes my nose, poking around where it's not welcome again."

"Your perfect little nose is always welcome in my business." He told her as she sat down beside him. "Your understanding of my mind still catches me off guard once in a while."

"Caroline told me that Elena said that during Stefan's humanity-less time in the twenties, he would write the names of his victims on a wall in his apartment." she admitted. "The only difference between that and this, is the fact that all of those letters were written from one lover to another." She pointed out and he didn't say anything back. "You know, vampires talk about the humanity switch like it's a magical fix all. Damon and Stefan made it sound like all emotions cease to exist, but…even when it was flipped…when I was as numb as I was going to get, and when I _really_ didn't want it, there was still one emotion that tried to fight its way in."

"And what emotion was that?" he asked looking at her across his shoulder, wondering where she was going with this.

"The one more powerful than hurt and hatred." She answered and looked across her shoulder at him. "Love." He blinked, giving her the look that said she was once again doing that thing where she decoded and understood the cracks within him, the same cracks she shared. "I guess what I'm so poorly trying to say is…" she pointed up at the letters on the wall above them, "I get it." she dropped her hand to her lap.

As usual when she did that, since he wouldn't let himself tell her he loved her, he slid his arm between her back and the head board and pulled her around to straddle him and pressed his lips to hers in a deep kiss, pouring it all into her. "You are truly one of a kind, Little Phoenix."

Katie smiled and looked down at his chest letting her mind wander to lighter subjects like prom that was coming up soon. "I have a question."

"I may have an answer." He replied as his hands slid down her back to hold her rear.

"If I asked you to let Tyler come home would you?" his face turned hard. "Not for good, just for prom."

"Katie…" he sighed.

"Please?" she begged giving him her best puppy dog eyes. "Caroline's my best friend and she is working her butt off to make prom perfect for everybody. Her night should be just as perfect as everyone else's"

"Fine, but his welcome wears off at eleven." He told her.

"Oh, come on, prom isn't even over until ten thirty. At least give them until twelve." She reasoned.

"No." he told her flatly.

"Yes." She argued with a half serious glare.

"No."

"Klaus…" she drawled his name out warningly.

"Katie…" he mimicked her.

"Please, for me?" she pulled puppy dog eyes again.

"You," he grabbed her sides and moved her around to lay on her back making her laugh when he tickled her sides and moved to hover over her, "are lucky you're cute when you're being demanding." She slid directly under him and wrapped her legs around his hips. "He better be out of town by twelve or he's dead." He told her and she gave him a bright smile.

"Thank you." she told him still smiling.

"You're gonna thank me with more than just words." He told her with a lustful glare.

"Oh I am, am I?" she asked with a laugh and he hummed. "In a minute." She told him as she turned on her stomach and slid up to grab her cell phone off the night stand.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked.

"Telling Caroline the good news." She replied as she started texting Caroline. A yelp and a giggle lift her lips when he grabbed her ankles and pulled her back to him. As she texted Caroline he peppered her back with kisses seeking out her ticklish spots just to hear her laugh. "Okay, where were we?" she asked as she rolled over and smiled up at him.

* * *

After a two hour flight she landed at the airport, hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of Rousseau's. She texted her father to let him know she was on her way to the bar and gill then texted Klaus to let him know she had landed and arrived safe and sound. When she got the bar and grill and walked in she easily found Bradley sitting at a table near the window. "Scarlett." He smiled when she walked over and sat down.

"Hi." She greeted feeling awkward as she hooked her purse over the back of the chair and sat down.

A pretty young brunette waitress with a gap between her two front teeth walked over and took her drink order. "You should try the gumbo." Bradley spoke up and the waitress looked at Katie. "Sophie here is the best cook in the French Quarter."

"I don't know about that, Bradley." She told him with a flirty smile then looked at Katie.

"Sure." Katie told Sophie with a nod remembering that Klaus had recommended she try gumbo.

"I'll get that right out." Sophie told her then walked away.

"So how have you been?" Bradley asked.

"Good, believe it or not." She answered still feeling awkward. "What about you?"

"Better now that I know you're okay." His answer pissed her off and he could tell. "Look, I know you probably hate me for leaving you with your grandfather, but I did it to protect you."

"You thought that leaving me to come here and search for people that haven't lived in this area for at least a hundred years was protecting me?" she asked trying her best to contain her anger. He sighed and looked down at the table. Sophie walked over with Katie's drink and a bowl of gumbo and set them down in front of her. "Did you know you and mom have empty graves in the cemetery?" she asked and he shook his head no. "I grew up telling myself stories about where the two of you disappeared to. That you guys were entered into witness protection and weren't allowed to come back to me or that your bodies were buried in the woods somewhere or eaten by bears or something. Why didn't you just come home and be a father to me?"

"Because a vampire was the last thing you needed in your life." He told her quietly.

"And I call B.S." she told him then took a sip of her sweet tea. "You, even as you are now, would have been better than Grandfather."

"I was going to pay him a visit and give him a piece of my mind before I left Mystic Falls, but he wasn't there." He told her.

"Yeah that's because I killed him." she told him with a straight face and he looked at her, his green eyes wide. "Oh don't judge me when you're the one that killed my mother."

"How were you able to speak with her again?" he asked clearly aggravated that she'd learned that bit of information.

"Bonnie Bennett brought Jeremy Gilbert back from the dead and in doing so cracked the door to the other side open. A witch on the other side wedged it open and let the supernatural spirits be able to interact with our side. For a while we were able to see and feel them. Mom found me and we were able talk before Bonnie fixed the balance." She explained. "She is the only reason I'm here right now."

"I'm really sorry I didn't come for you sooner." He told her seriously. "Maybe if I had you wouldn't be what you are now."

"Which is?" she asked as she picked up her spoon and started stirring the gumbo. It looked disgusting despite it's mouth watering smell.

"A vampire…and whatever getting Hannah's memories has turned you into." He answered then watched her playing with the gumbo. "Would you just try it already?" he asked with a point to the bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo.

"Fine." She answered and took a bite. "Holy shit." She commented as she covered her mouth then swallowed. "That's really good."

Her father laughed. "Told you." things got quiet and she was almost through with her gumbo when he asked, "So how's everyone back home?"

"Well, let's see, Shelia Bennett, Mayor douche wad and Carole Lockwood, Caroline's father, Elena's parents, her aunt Jenna, Jeremy and John Gilbert aka Elena's bio dad, along with most of the other council members that got blown up in the pastors farm house are all dead. I'm sure I'm leaving some people out, but that's all I can think of right now." she told him. "Oh and Caroline and Elena are vampires too. Other than that there's the impending threat of hell on earth being unleashed, but that's another story for another time."

"Wow." He said taking timr to let it sink in. After a few minutes he blinked out of his thoughts. "So you said you've met all of the originals?"

"Yep, even momma and poppa original." She answered.

"And you live to tell about it." he observed.

"What can I say, the Mikaelson siblings like me." she told him with a shrug.

"A little too much if you ask me." he commented.

She rolled her eyes and looked up at him. "Please tell me you're not still mad that Elijah and I found each other."

"My family, your ancestors, devoted their lives to keeping the reincarnations from remembering Elijah." He told her with a glare.

"I'm sorry the reincarnations?" she asked with a frown and a shake of her head as she pushed her bowl away from her.

"You think you're the first of Hannah's reincarnation attempts?" he asked with a tilt of his head.

"Uh, yeah, I don't remember any lives other than Hannah and this one." She answered, completely confused.

"That's because the reincarnations were never allowed to live past their sixth birthday." She just stared at him. "Legend has it that Jonah was so disgusted with what his mother had done that he killed his daughter to keep her from turning into his mother…to keep her from suffering at the hands of the Mikealson men." he explained. "Every Finnegan female was either killed at birth or just before her sixth birthday. I couldn't kill you so I did my best to protect you. I had Sheila block your memories and after I turned I didn't come back because if I did it was more likely, with a vampire in your life, that you would become one and break the dam in your mind. I hoped that you would live and die as Katie, never becoming Hannah. I hoped it would break the cycle and free the women of our family."

After a few minutes of letting it all sink in she sighed and looked up from her empty bowl to her father. "Then I guess I should thank you for not killing me and tell you that the cycle is broken." he frowned in confusion. "I'm no longer linked to or with Elijah."

"Really?" he asked with raised brows.

"Yep, the link broke when my soul shattered." She answered.

"So you're free of the Mikaelson's?" he asked.

"Um…" she pulled one side of her mouth up and squinted an eye. "I guess you could say that?" she scratched the back of her neck uncomfortably.

"What does that mean?" he asked a little confused.

"Klaus and I are kind of…together." She answered.

"Klaus is not an acceptable partner for anyone, much less my little Scarlett." He told her.

She scoffed and before he could say anything, a guy who looked to be in his mid to late twenties with espresso skin and nice eyes, walked over to them and slapped his hand down on Bradley's shoulder. "Who may I ask is this lovely lady?" he asked giving Katie a bright, charming smile.

"My daughter, Scarlett." Bradley answered. "Scarlett, this is Marcel."

Katie gave Marcel a wave and a polite smile assuming that he was the same Marcel that turned her father. "I hate to pull you away from your family reunion, but we have business to attend to." Marcel told Bradley.

"Alright." Bradley told Marcel who walked off giving the father and daughter time to bid each other goodbye. "How long are you planning on staying in town?"

"I'm flying back in the morning." She answered. "Prom is coming up soon."

"What time is your flight?" he asked.

"Seven thirty." She answered.

"We'll meet here for breakfast at six?" he asked and she nodded. "See you in the morning." He told her and she gave him a smile and a wave and watched him leave with Marcel.

"Refill?" Sophie asked as she walked over with a pitcher of tea in her hand. Katie slid her empty glass to the edge of the table. "Would you like more gumbo?"

"No, but it was delicious." She answered then gave Sophie a smile as she picked up her glass of tea. "Thank you."

She was still sitting there, sipping on her tea, fiddling with her necklace, thinking about everything she and her father had discussed when Sophie walked by with a sizzling plate of fajitas and her stomach flipped. She frowned and ran to the bathroom with her hand over her mouth and barely made it into the stall before her gumbo came back up. "The hell was in that gumbo?" Katie sighed as she shut the toilet lid and flushed it.

"It wasn't the gumbo." She heard Sophie say from outside the stall. "You're tea, however had a very powerful mixture of herbs in it. A roofie…kind of."

Katie pushed the stall door open and turned on the sink. "You're a witch."

"Yep." Sophie answered.

"I've seen a witch roofie in action, the dude didn't get sick." Katie said as she cupped her hand under the stream of water and rinsed out her mouth.

"Yeah that's not the roofie, that's morning sickness." Sophie told her watching her grow weaker and weaker.

"That would imply…that I'm pregnant. I'm a vampire, I…can't…" she passed out.

Sophie watched her fall then knocked on the door letting Jane-Ann, her sister inside. "This is stupid, and risky, you know that right?"

"We will talk about this later, for now we have to get her out of here without being seen." Jane-Ann told her.

* * *

Katie woke up in a cabin in the woods, crickets and frogs could be heard outside. "Where am I?" she groaned as she sat up in the cot she was laying on.

"The bayou." Sophie told her.

"Why?" she asked with a glare.

"Because like it or not, you're pregnant with Klaus Mikaelson's child." Sophie answered reminding Katie what she'd told her before she passed out.

"It's not possible, I'm a vampire. We can't have kids." She sighed, feeling ill. "How would you know anyway. You're a witch not a doctor."

"I'm a witch with a gift of telling when a woman is pregnant. I sensed it as soon as you walked into the restaurant." She told her.

Katie, sure that Sophie was wrong, got quiet and listened. At first she only heard Sophie's heartbeat and her own, but eventually she heard a small, fast heartbeat and slid her hand over her lower abdomen. "Holy freaking hell…"

"Congratulations?" Sophie asked awkwardly.

"How the hell is this possible?" Katie asked, sounding like she was in shock.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Sophie shrugged.

"So what do you want with me? Why kidnap me and bring me out to the middle of nowhere?" Katie asked trying to think about something other than what Klaus was going to have to say about this or the thousand other questions that were running through her head.

"Marcel has been keeping my people under his thumb, but now we have you." Katie shook her head not understanding. "Your boyfriend is famous in this town. Witches tell bedtime stories about the vampire Klaus. Marcel was nothing but an orphaned street rat until he made him what he is. Now he's out of control. He does what he wants. He kills who he wants. We're gonna stop him and you're gonna help us."

"And how am I supposed to do that? I don't even know you people." Katie asked with a scoff. Jane-Ann walked in. "Who are you?"

"My name's Jane-Ann." She answered. "And to answer your question, you're going to get Klaus here and you're going to get him to help us."

"What makes you think I have any control over Klaus?" Katie asked with a glare.

"Because he's been texting you every hour on the hour for the past day and a half." Sophie answered holding up Katie's cell phone. "A guy doesn't do that unless he's worried and people only worry when they care."

"Prom is today." Katie sighed realizing how stupid that sounded since she just found out that she's pregnant.

"Yeah, Caroline's been texting incessantly about that." Sophie told her. "I'm sorry but you're going to have to miss it."

"I gathered as much." Katie scoffed.

"We need to get started, Soph." Jane-Ann said.

* * *

After performing a million different witchy tests on her Sophie tossed Katie a clear blue pregnancy test. "Just for shits and giggles. The out house is that way." She told her with a point outside.

"Watch your language Soph." Jane-Ann scolded her little sister as Katie stood up and went outside.

After taking the pregnancy test she put the cap back on it and watched as the word pregnant show up on the screen. She headed back inside and showed it to them, then tucked it into her pocket. "How the hell is this even possible?" Katie asked herself more than them.

"Did I hear you tell Bradley that your soul shattered?" Jane-Ann asked having been at the bar while Katie and her father chatted.

"Yeah, why?" Katie asked as if it were no big deal.

"No one, witch, human, vampire or wolf has ever come back from that before." Jane-Ann answered. "We have no records of what that can do to someone."

"Even still, that doesn't explain Klaus's roll in this." Katie pointed out.

"He's a hybrid, magic made him vampire, but he was born a werewolf and is the first of his kind. Nature is full of loopholes." Jane-Ann explained.

"Awesome." Katie sighed and fell back to lie on the cot hoping to go to sleep and wake up from this nightmare.

* * *

After making sure Tyler was out of town Klaus returned to his mansion to find a note, left for him by Katherine. "Klaus, I hear Elijah has refused you the cure and in return you have refused me my freedom. Shame on you both. But while you boys sort out your problems, I have one last thing to offer you. I've caught wind that there is a witch in New Orleans named Jane-Anne Deveraux holding your precious Katie hostage. Hunt her down. What she has to tell you about Katie will rattle you so deeply to your core that chasing little old me will be the least of your concerns. It's been a fun five centuries, Klaus, but I've worn down too many good heels running from you. Love and hate, Katerina."

Klaus dropped everything, packed a bag and bought a plane ticket to New Orleans.

* * *

Twenty four hours later Katie sat on a wooden bench in a tomb in the middle of a cemetery in New Orleans. "We can talk freely here." Katie heard Sophie say. She also heard another set of feet walking with Sophie.

"Then I suggest you start talking." Elijah's voice made Katie perk up, just happy to hear a familiar voice. "What did your sister want with Niklaus?" Katie tried to leave the tomb, but a couple of witches stepped in her way.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sophie asked. "We have a vampire problem, and we need help. Marcel has an army backing him. The witches have been trying to fight back, but we haven't had much luck. Until my sister, Jane-Anne and I met a girl, a vampire girl passing through the quarter from a small town in Virginia, the daughter of one of Marcel's day walkers. She has a special…connection, to your bother." Sophie explained to him. "By the look on your face I'm guessing you know who she is."

"What do you want with Katie?" he asked, his tone guarded.

"Wait, are we talking about the same girl? Bradley called her Scarlett." Sophie asked.

"Scarlett is her middle name." Elijah answered growing impatient.

"She's pregnant and the father of the child she's carrying is your bother, Klaus." Sophie told him.

"That's impossible." Katie could hear the shock in his voice.

"Nothing's impossible, especially not when it comes to a hybrid and the first being to ever recover from a shattered soul." Sophie explained. "Let her out." She called.

The men stepped aside and Katie whooshed out of the tomb, stopping in her tracks when her eyes landed on Elijah, looking at her with narrowed eyes. He looked at Sophie, "Give us a moment please." Sophie nodded and jerked her head for the witches to leave them be. Elijah put his hand on Katie's lower back and led her into the tomb where she sat back down straddling the bench. He started pacing. "So it's true?" he asked and she nodded. "Have they been holding you here against your will?"

"They witch roofied me, brought me out to the bayou and did all these witchy tests." She told him then pulled the pregnancy test out of her pocket. "But even the plain old clear blue confirmed it." she showed him the word pregnant on the test. "I thought it was just a really weird dream at first, but this is really happening…I'm really pregnant." She tapped the test on the bench, attempting to hold back her tears, then tucked it back into the pocket of her jeans.

Elijah sat down and pulled a leg up on the bench to face her and cupped her cheek in his hand making her eyes slip shut for a second. "How are you dealing with this?"

"I'm shaking in my freaking boots." She answered, tapping the toe of her shoe down into the tile floor of the tomb. "What if he doesn't want it…or me?" she asked with a shaking voice. "I can't do this alone."

"You are not in this alone." He assured her. "I do not believe he would turn his back on you." He wiped her tear away. "Niklaus has never truly been happy, but I believe that you and this baby can achieve the impossible and save him from himself."

Katie grabbed his wrist and moved his hand from her face. "No pressure or anything."

"That wasn't my intent." He told her apologetically.

"No, I know." She assured him. "I'm just…a little overwhelmed, I guess."

"Katie I know I've broken my promises to you in the past, but I need you to trust me when I say that no harm will come to you or this baby if I can help it." he brushed her loose hair behind her ear and rested his hand on the side of her neck.

She took his hand off her and held it in both of hers. "I'm trusting you, please don't make me regret it again."

"I wouldn't dare." He told her seriously.

She took a deep breath and let go of his hand. "We have to convince the witches to let me tell Klaus about the baby. It's my business to tell, not theirs."

"Request heard and granted." Sophie told her as she walked in.

"What precisely is it that you want and what does it have to do with Katie?" Elijah asked as he stood up and walked over to Sophie.

"We want to run Marcel and his vampires out of town. Klaus is the key. Everything Marcel knows about being a vampire he learned from Klaus. Marcel trusts him, looks up to him. He won't see the betrayal coming." Sophie answered.

"Yes. Well, I'm sure you're aware, my brother Niklaus doesn't like to be told what to do." Elijah told her and Katie found that she still liked to listen to Elijah talk.

"Marcel drove the werewolves out of town decades ago. Do you really think he's going to welcome a hybrid baby to the neighborhood?" Katie placed a hand protectively over her stomach at Sophie's words. "Convince Klaus to help us and no one has to know about the newest member of the original family."

"That sounds _remarkably_ like blackmail." Elijah told her.

"Like I said, I'm desperate." Sophie told him with a hard voice and face.

"Well, then. We have our work cut out for us don't we?" Elijah asked with a look back at Katie.

* * *

"What are we doing here?" Katie had been sitting on the bench in the tomb, bouncing her foot nervously since Elijah left to find Klaus. When she heard the younger brother's voice she stood up.

"You want to know where Katie is and what the witches have in store for you?" Elijah asked rhetorically. "Follow me."

A few seconds later Elijah and Klaus walked into the empty tomb to see Katie standing in front of the bench with her head held high, doing a good job of covering up how much she was freaking out inside. "Before you get mad, I haven't been ignoring your texts and calls. The witches took my phone."

"Are you alright?" he asked as he walked in and slid his hand over her cheek as he pressed his lips to hers. She savored the moment, knowing that after she told Klaus that she was pregnant it may very well be the list time he kissed her.

When the kiss broke she looked around Klaus to Elijah, "Leave us, please?" she could tell he didn't want to, but he gave her a nod and walked out of the tomb. "I have been wrecking my brain trying to find the right words to tell you this, but I can't. So I need you to do me a favor." She told him and he blinked at her as she took his hands in hers and held them to her chest. "Close your eyes and listen." He rolled his eyes at her as if she were being silly. "Just…do it please."

He closed his eyes and listened to everything around him. She knew he'd heard the baby's heartbeat when he took in a deep breath, his eyes shot open and he jerked his hands from hers as if he'd been burned. "How is this possible?" He whispered looking into her eyes as a tear slipped down his cheek. He wanted the baby, she could see it in his eyes, but if he was willing to let himself have it, to have happiness, she couldn't tell.

"I am the first known person to come back from a shattered soul and you are a hybrid, the first of your kind. Apparently nature loves loopholes." She told him quietly to hide the fear in her voice. After a few minutes of silence passed it became too much for her to handle. "I feel like I'm about to have a panic attack, please say something."

"What do the witches want with you?" he asked, not putting her mind at ease.

"They want you to over throw Marcel and get them out from under his control." She answered.

"Why should I?" he asked with a hard face.

Before Katie could answer, Sophie and a few other witches walked into the tomb. Elijah walked over and stood next to Klaus and Katie moved to his other side, looking at the three witches blocking them into the tomb. "Because my sister gave her life to perform the spell that put the lives of this girl and her baby in our control. If you do not help us take down Marcel…so help me Katie won't live long enough to see her first maternity dress."

"Whoa, hey, you're threatening me?" Katie asked shocked at what she'd just learned. "I've never been anything but cooperative with you people."

"We appreciate that, but we aren't so sure he'll be as understanding." Sophie told her with a hard face and a point at Klaus.

"Enough of this." Elijah told Sophie, "If you want Marcel dead he's dead. I'll do it myself."

"No. We can't. Not yet." Sophie argued. "We have a clear plan that we need to follow and there are rules."

"Sophie can you guys just back the hell off and give us a minute please?" Katie asked and Sophie gave her a look that asked, seriously? "Just a few minutes then you can get back to your threats, blackmail and bullshit."

"Fine, but just a few." She nodded and motioned for the witches to leave and followed them out.

With them gone Katie sank down on the bench and placed her head in her hands with a heavy breath. "This is a trick." Klaus growled being his usual paranoid self.

"No, brother, it's a gift. It's your chance. It's _our _chance." Elijah argued.

"You know I would never lie to you. Or is our trust really that one sided?" Katie asked as she stood from the bench and walked over to him.

"It's not one sided." He told her with watery eyes.

"Good, then do me a favor and put the witches out of your mind for a second. You haven't said and I need to know. Do you want this baby?" When a tear betrayed her she quickly wiped it away.

He stared at her for a minute then said one word, "No."

It felt as if someone snatched the air from her lungs and a pain shot through her chest. She wanted to break down, cry and let it all out, but she wouldn't let him see how much he affected her. So she held her head high. "I call bullshit." she told him in a quiet yet strong voice. "I know you want this baby, you want _us_. I saw it in your eyes." she didn't bother wiping her tear away this time. "You made hybrids because you wanted a new family. Well," she held her hands out to the side, "you've got one standing right in front of you. All you have to do is say the word and we're yours."

"Listen to her, Niklaus." Elijah spoke up making Katie look at him then back at Klaus.

"You once told me that Elijah was my first love and you intended to be my last. If you reject this baby again, that will _never_ happen." His lips drew together, pursed in defiance. "So, I'll ask one more time. Do you want this baby?"

He leaned down and looked her in the eyes, "No." he saw hurt flash in them then turn into a blazing fire that he hated seeing directed at him. He thought she was going to hit him, but she didn't.

Instead she grabbed the silver pendant hanging around her neck in her fist and jerked. Elijah watched her grab Klaus's hand, put the necklace in his palm and closed it. "Thank you." he gave her a questioning look. "For reminding me that love…is for children and fools." She shoved his hand and turned her back on him, leaving the tomb.

One of the witches thought she was trying to leave the cemetery and grabbed her arm. She grabbed his wrist, knocked him to his knees and twisted his arm behind his back almost breaking it. "You lay a hand on me again and it will no longer be attached to your body." She shoved him to the ground then looked at Sophie, "Proceeded with the blackmail and bullshit, I've gotten the only answer I cared about." she walked over to the steps of another tomb and sat down on them, crossing her arms over her knees and rested her head on them.

Katie zoned out and lost track of how much time had passed before she felt someone touch her shoulder and she looked up to see that it was Sophie. "Come on." She jerked her head back to the tomb. "Klaus and Elijah are gone for now, but I'm sure Elijah will be back." Katie just nodded and stood up.

* * *

Katie sat on the wooden bench in the tomb listening to the witches talk about how Marcel and his vampires were out of control when one of them asked, "What makes you think you can control the hybrid?"

"She can't." Elijah spoke up and everyone looked to see him leaning against the doorway of the tomb. "I'm not entirely certain I can either." He pushed himself off the wall and walked into the tomb. "But now that your coven has drawn his ire, I have a question. What prevents my brother from murdering you instead of cooperating?"

Sophie walked over to the wall of the tomb and grabbed a straw doll off of a shelf. She took a needle out of it and poked her hand. Katie winced and looked at a spot of blood that pooled in her palm. "Are you freaking kidding me? She linked me to you!?" Katie asked angrily.

"Yep. Anything that happens to me, happens to you." Sophie told her then looked at Elijah. "Which means her life is in my hands. If she so much as sets a foot out of this town I will be able to tell." Katie gritted her teeth with flared nostrils. "Klaus may not care about his own child, but it's very clear what it already means to you. If I have to hurt Katie or worse to ensure that I have your attention, I will."

Elijah took a step closer to Sophie. "You would dare threaten an original?"

"I have nothing to lose." Sophie answered. "You have until midnight to get Klaus to change his mind."

Elijah turned and left the tomb.

* * *

Katie was sitting outside the tomb, getting fresh air when she heard the midnight bell toll then let her head fall back. She was staring up at the sky, waiting for the witches to come kill her when she heard someone walking up and looked up to see Elijah carrying a body wrapped in light brown linen. Curious, she followed him inside the tomb. "Klaus does not care about the child." She heard Agnes, one of the witch elders say.

"I do." Elijah spoke up getting their attention. "And I bring proof of my intent to help you. The body of your fallen friend." He kneeled down and placed the body on the floor. "Which I procured from Marcel himself."

"Jane-Anne." Sophie sighed and fell to the floor beside her dead sister.

"May she be granted peace." Elijah told them. "Klaus will agree to your terms." They all looked at him. "I just need a little more time."

"You've had your time. It's passed." Agnes argued.

"Shut up, Agnes." One of the other witches spoke up and moved to stand next to Sophie.

"For now, accept the deal." Elijah told them. "Katie and the child remain unharmed, or Klaus will kill you all" He turned a started walking away, but stopped and turned back to look at the witches. "And I will help him."

* * *

The next morning Katie was brought back to the cemetery. "When can I have my cell phone back?" she asked as she walked in and sat down on the bench. "I'm bored out of my mind."

Sophie pulled Katie's phone out of her back pocket and held it up. "You can't tell anyone about your pregnancy."

"Duh." Katie commented and Sophie slapped the phone into Katie's palm. "Thank you."

She was going through her texts from Caroline, Klaus and Bonnie when Elijah and Sophie walked in. "Klaus has agreed to help us. You're free to go, but don't even think about leaving town. If you do, I'll sense it and kill both of us."

"Ten four, rubber ducky." Katie sighed sarcastically as she pushed herself from the bench and walked over to Elijah. When they got out of the cemetery she asked, "So, how'd you get him to agree?"

Elijah opened the passenger door of his car for her. "Unlike you I didn't give up on him." he answered as she slid inside and he shut the door.

"I didn't give up on him. I'm just done wasting my breath begging people to give a shit about me." she replied not looking at him as he cranked the car and started driving.

"Do you really think he doesn't care about you?" he asked and she just shrugged. "He cares, Katie."

"Yeah, well, he has a funny way of showing it." she scoffed.

"He is scared." Elijah defended.

"And I'm not?" she asked raising her voice.

"You've been a parent before. You know how to love unconditionally. Klaus doesn't because he's never experienced it." Elijah reminded her.

"Can we just…stop talking about this, please?" she asked getting aggravated.

"Of course." He drove her out of the city and to a plantation house. "Welcome to your new home." He parked outside the huge two story white house with large columns, black shutters and a black door.

"Well, it's a lot better than a tomb or a swamp." She commented then got out of the car.

After he let her inside and gave her a tour, she picked a room with a window seat and pulled the dust covers off of the bed and the rest of the furniture.

She was sitting on the window seat, her back to the door and her head leaned on the wall, looking outside when she heard someone walk up behind her. A bouquet of six red roses appeared in front of her face and she recognized the hand holding them as Klaus's. She took them, held her hand out to the side then dropped them to the floor. She heard him sigh then a pint of strawberry ice cream and a spoon appeared in front of her. She took it and he thought she was going to drop it too, but she stood from the bench and left the room. He followed her down stairs to the kitchen where she pulled open the icebox that was made to blend with the white cabinets and stuck it in the freezer. When she turned around he gave her a curious look. "I don't believe in wasting perfectly good ice cream."

She walked around the island and had to pass him on the way to the door, but he gently grabbed her arm, stopping her from walking away from him. "Please accept my apology."

"I have yet to hear one." She pointed out as she took her arm from his grasp.

"I'm sorry." He told her quietly. "I…"

"Acted like a pig headed dick." She filled in for him since he couldn't find the words.

"That's putting it lightly." He told her with a nod.

She took in a slow, deep breath then heaved it out, walked back over to the icebox, grabbed the ice cream and the spoon she'd tossed into the empty sink at one end of the island and set the container on the counter across from where Klaus stood on the other side. "I'm really going to miss alcohol…" she stabbed the spoon into the pink frozen treat and took a bite. "I'm sorry too." She admitted then swallowed. "I shouldn't have cornered you with an ultimatum like that."

"How long hove you known?" he asked instead of acknowledging her apology.

"I found out not long after I got here. I was hanging out at Rousseau's after my dad left with Marcel when Sophie walked by with a place of Fajitas. The smell made me sick and let me tell you, Sophie's gumbo was freaking awesome, but after it came back up I don't think I'll ever be able to even smell it again." He smirked at her confession, a little happy she had taken his advice and had gumbo. "That was right before I passed out from the witch roofie Sophie put in my tea."

"Does your father know?" he asked.

"As far as he knows I skipped the breakfast we planned and left without saying goodbye." She told him. "And I'd like to keep it that way. Bredley is one of Marcel's day walkers. Marcel sired him and I don't know where his loyalties lie." She took one last bite of ice cream then put the top back on it, stuck it in the freezer and washed, dried and put away her spoon. "Speaking of Marcel, can I ask what history you have with him and this city? I know you guys had to leave in 1919, but that's about it."

"My family and I practically ran this town. Marcel was just an unnamed boy, a slave, when I found him, named him and took him under my wing." He told her as he walked around the island to stand across from her where she leaned her hip against the counter. "I made Marcel everything that he is. I loved him like a son, and when my father chased me and my family from here a hundred years ago we believed Marcel was killed. We each mourned him in our own way. Yet when I returned, I found not only had he survived he had thrived. Instead of seeking us out, instead of sticking together as one, he made a choice to take everything my family had built and make it his own. Now he is living in our home. He is sleeping in our beds. There's an M he stamps everywhere but it doesn't stand for Marcel, it's for Mikaelson. I want it all back. I want to be king."

"And this baby and I…Do we have a place in this kingdom of yours?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Every king needs a queen by his side." he replied as he slid his hand over the side of her neck. "And an heir to his throne." He leaned into her and pressed his forehead to hers, looking her in the eyes. "Stand with me, be my queen?" he asked and she pulled her head back as he pulled her necklace out of his pocket, the clasp now fixed.

"Let me hear you say it…out right, no talk of kingdoms." She told him, not giving in to him yet.

His mouth opened to say something but he closed it. She nodded and tried to turn her back on him to walk away, but he grabbed her arm and spun her around, catching her lips with his. It took a few seconds before she let herself kiss him back. When it broke he pressed his forehead to hers. "I want you…both of you." She gave him a small smile as she gathered up her lose auburn waves and lifted them as she turned her back on him. He put the necklace back around her neck. "And I never want to see this necklace leave your neck again."

"Good, because I never want to take it off again." She told him with as she slid her fingertips over the smooth metal then put her hand on his cheek. "I'll be your queen or your little phoenix or…whatever you want to call me." she smiled to herself more than him. "You've really got to stop giving me nicknames."

He chuckled, happy they were back on good terms. "The nicknames are endless because you…" he grabbed her hips and picked her up, setting her on the island next to the sink, "are my everything." His words knocked the breath out of her in a good way this time. After taking in a deep, forced breath she caught his lips with hers and the kiss quickly turned heated and a moan left her lips as she pulled him closer with her legs. A sigh left his lips as she started kissing his neck.

She was kissing his lips and about to grab then hem of his shirt and pull it over his head when she heard someone clear their throat. Klaus stopped kissing her and rolled his eyes as they both looked at Elijah, leaning against the door frame. "I see you two made up." Katie unwrapped her legs from Klaus's waist.

"We were working on it." Klaus answered with a smirk that Elijah ignored and made Katie look at the floor with a blush.

"Is it done?" Elijah asked Klaus making Katie look up at them, confused.

"As a matter of fact, yes." Klaus answered. "Your underhanded deal worked quite well. Marcel was only too happy to accept my blood, even as he accepted my heartfelt apologies. His man Thierry yet lives and I remain a welcome guest in the French quarter. My only concern now is this coven of impudent witches."

"You do know I'm linked to Sophie right?" Katie asked Klaus who gave her an interested look. "If she dies I die and while I will come back, the baby might not."

"I believe them to be honorable though." Elijah spoke up. "They did release Katie to me, although they haven't been entirely forthcoming. Marcel obviously has something that they need. They don't want him dead. There must be a reason why."

Out of nowhere a wave of nausea rolled over Katie sending her rushing to the bathroom. She was flushing the toilet when Elijah asked, "Are you okay?"

"Ugh." She responded and rested her forehead on the toilet seat knowing it was clean since they'd just moved into the house. "Please look away." She groaned.

Instead he walked inside, grabbed a washcloth, wet it and rang it out. "You forget this isn't the first time I've seen you sick." He pointed out as he handed her the cloth. She took it and his offered hand when he offered it.

He pulled her up. "I didn't forget. I caught the flu back in Ireland and wouldn't let you give me your blood." she remembered then wiped her face and mouth and rinsed the cloth out and draped it over the faucet. "Why was that again?"

"You said it was a human experience that you needed to get through so that you wouldn't get sick again." He reminded her.

"And Jonah ever so politely told me I was being stupid." She said as she put her hand on the counter and leaned on it.

"You were running a fever and not thinking straight." he added. "Jonah convinced me to heal you while you were sleeping."

"And I thanked you for it when I woke up." She gave him small smile. "At least this time you don't have to pick stew chunks out of my insanely tight curls."

"I didn't _have_ to do it then." He pointed out with a small smile of his own, reminding her that he did it because he loved her, not because he had to. "And if I may…" he grabbed the rag and rinsed it out then wiped at a spot of puke on her cheek that she'd missed. When he was done he tossed the rag into the dirty clothes hamper behind her.

"So," Katie started realizing that reminiscing wasn't the best idea, "Where did you go after I woke up and you left Mystic Falls?" she asked, as she hopped up to sit on the bathroom counter, wanting to stick close to the toilet incase she got sick again.

"I'm surprised Niklaus hasn't already told you." he told her as he leaned back on the wall across from her in the small guest bathroom. She just looked at him and shrugged. He narrowed his eyes, thinking about not telling her. "Katherine contacted me and said she had the cure. She thought we could be of mutual use to one another."

Katie bit her lips closed and narrowed her eyes back at him. "You were _with her_, with her weren't you?"

"Katie I-" he started

"Stop, rewind and forget I asked. It's none of my business." She interrupted him. "I told you we needed to move on. So you moved on just like I did."

"I _tried_ to move on." He corrected her. "It did not work."

She wanted to ask why. A small part of her wanted to know if he couldn't move on because he was still hung up on her, but another… much bigger part dedicated to Klaus, didn't care. "Good." She saw curiosity flash behind his pretty brown eyes. "You can do better than the colossal bitch that is Katherine Pierce. Now," she hopped down off the bathroom counter and walked over to the bathroom door, "if you don't mind I really need to shower."

She was getting out of the shower when she heard the all too familiar sound of Elijah in pain. With a whoosh she wrapped the towel around herself and went to where she'd heard the sound only to find an empty room. She went back to her room and got dressed then started searching the house. After an hour she found a hidden room containing coffins, one of which reminded her of her bedroom in Klaus's house in Mystic Falls. She noticed Elijah's coffin missing and after searching the room thoroughly she found two silver daggers.

* * *

She was removing dust cloths from some of the furniture out of the need to do something when she heard the front door open and close. Klaus heard her and found here. "Where's Elijah?" she asked flatly.

"Exactly where he needs to be." Klaus answered and did that thing where he looked down his nose at her.

"Where he _needs_ to be is here, with us, but he's not." She replied, her nostrils flaring a bit. "I searched this house over and do you know what I found?" she asked rhetorically as she closed the space between them and glared up at him. "Daggers and coffins…one of each missing and one coffin that looked suspiciously like it could me mine." He sighed and blinked at her. "Start. Explaining."

"The white coffin _is_ yours." he told her and she took in an angry breath, but kept her mouth shut. "I had it custom made when I thought you were dying and I haven't been able to convince myself to get rid of it. I have no intention of ever seeing you in it."

She had to admit, he was smart to lead with that. She found it touching that he'd had a coffin custom made for her to be buried in style…or on the even creepier side, kept with him in style. But she shook herself out of her thoughts and put the glare back on her face. "Get to the part where you tell me where Elijah's at."

"He was a weakness. Marcel was nervous. It was bad enough that one original returned to town, but two… His crew was getting antsy. He wanted Elijah gone. So I gave him a peace offering." She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. "I have a plan to keep you safe. Gain Marcel's trust, dismantle his empire, and see to it that our baby is born into an environment free of wolf hating vampires and witches threatening to kill you." He cupped her face in his hands. "I am taking care of you the only way I know how." She gently grabbed his wrists and took his hands from her face. "Katie…"

"We will continue this conversation after I calm down." she told him with a tight voice and a hard look. He let her walk away.

She was sitting at the dining table and had finished off the ice cream that Klaus had bought her when he dared to show his face to her again. She didn't say a word as she watched him pull out a chair and sit down across from her. "Calm yet?"

"As much as I'm gonna get." She answered the tossed the spoon into the empty container and pushed it to the side. "Elijah's not a weakness or a bargaining chip. He's an asset. With that being said, tell me the full truth. You didn't dagger him just because of Marcel, did you?"

Klaus sighed and looked down at the table then back up at her. "Contrary to his escapades with Katerina he is still in love with you, Katie." She gritted her teeth. "I heard the two of you, reminiscing over a time when it was him taking care of you."

"New flash," she started with an attitude, "We have seven years of memories together and time to time those memories are going to resurface. Yes, I look back on them fondly as I'm sure he does too, and yes I still love him, but I am not in love with him and he is not the Mikaelson brother I want. You are and you know it." He nodded, letting her know he understood and the look in his eyes told her he was sorry. "The reason he is an asset is because the old saying, it takes a village to raise a child is incredibly true. Parents are the most important people in a child's life, but they also need aunts and uncles, people that round out their world. If you keep daggering our village this child doesn't stand a chance."

"It will take time, but I will find a way to get him back." he told her quietly.

"Good." She stood up and walked around the table to lean her hips against it and look down at him. "And if I'm not mistaken, don't kings usually keep their queens informed on battle plans?" she asked, with an arched brow.

A small smile pulled at the corners of his lips as he clasped his hands in front of him with his elbows resting on the arms of the dining chair. "I will also do a better job of keeping you in the loop."

"Thank you." she told him with a nod and he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her over to stand in front of him and rested his head on her stomach. They both got quiet for a moment, listening to the fast beat of the baby's heart. "Is there anything you wish to ask of me?" she asked knowing that he was used to doing what he wanted when he wanted and now he was having to accommodate her.

He picked his head up and looked up at her. "As much as I want to show you New Orleans I need you to stay here." he told her. "If your father sees you out and about in the quarter he'll start asking questions. As you've already pointed out he is part of Marcel's inner circle. You need to remain a secret."

"And if my father runs into you in the quarter?" she asked. "He knows we're together. He'll want to know where I am."

"You went on a pre-graduation road trip. Last I heard you were in Chicago." He told her.

"That actually sounds like something I would do and answers why I'm not in Mystic falls incase he went looking for me. It's a given that my friends back in Mystic Falls can't know the truth either huh?" she asked and he nodded, knowing she would hate lying to her friends. "Then they get the same story." she agreed. "But if I'm going to be locked away in here I'm going to need a few things."

"Like what?" he asked curiously.

"Internet, a laptop and a three in one printer." She answered. "Even if I can't make it to graduation I fully intend on getting my diploma and I have a lot of catching up to do."

"Your wish is my command." He told her with a closed lipped smile.

"As yours is mine." She told him then placed her hands on the arms of the chair and leaned down, looking him in the eyes. "Thank you." She pecked him on the lips and he smiled.

**A/N:** So I was nervous about the transition to The Originals. How'd I do? Too close to the original storyline? On one hand I feel like Klaus should have stepped up sooner, but at the same time, his love for Katie aside (even though he hasn't dropped the L bomb) he's still the paranoid, hot headed, difianant when backed into a corner, Klaus we've come to know. Sorry to the reviewer that said they wanted a Kai Parker end game, that's not going to happen. While our very understanding Katie would be the first to give a villing like him a chance, she is no longer in Mystic Falls to cross paths with him and she very much all in and dedicated to Klaus.


	40. Chapter 40

**A/N:** Sorry for any typos I missed.

**Phoenix Rising**

**Ch. 40**

Klaus woke up lying on his side with his arm draped over Katie's stomach. As his eyes traveled up her body he found that she was already awake, her un-manicured fingers fiddling with the silver pendent that hung around her neck. "I apologise."

Katie blinked out of her thoughts and looked over at him with a frown as she turned onto her side and tucked her arm under her pillow. "For what?"

"I made you one promise…and I've broken it." he told her and she shook her head at him in confusion. "I told you I wouldn't let anyone keep you from making the sky yours. You didn't want to settle down and have a family yet here you are. Tied down by me and a child that no one asked if you wanted."

"When did I say I didn't want to settle down and have a family?" she asked as she slid her hand up his chest to rest on his neck.

"When we were talking about the cure and why you didn't want to take it." he pointed out.

She shook her head understanding how he could have gotten that impression. "I said I didn't want a human man or a human family. We're not human." She corrected him. "I don't know about you, but I tried not to look too far into out future. I wanted to take things slow for once…like glacially so when it came to the serious stuff, but its kind of impossible to move that slow now. So I'll admit that had this pregnancy not been possible and if we were still together in say…twenty or so years and if it felt like the right time, I would have brought up the idea of adoption and talked things out with you and figured out if it was something we would want." She slid her hand back down to rest on his chest. "But nature skiped ahead and decided for us. If I'm being honestly, I'm not mad about it, I'm just sorry if this baby and I roped you in and tied you down."

"I think I've made it pretty clear that I like being tied down by you." he told her making a small smile pull at the corner of her lips.

"Elijah was spot on when he said this baby is a gift. You've once again given me more than I ever could have asked for." She told him honestly and the intense look of love in his eyes almost made her heart stop. "So you haven't broken your promise and clipped my wings. You've given them something to wrap around and hold onto."

"Our child…will be just as loved and spoiled as you are." He slipped his hand down her side to her outer thigh that he grabbed and pulled up over his hip. His hand on her combined with the fact that he pretty much just said he loved her caused butterflies to stir within her.

She still wasn't ready to say those three little words, so instead she pushed him to lie on his back, straddled him and pressed her lips to his letting how much he meant to her flow into him. His tongue slipped between her lips and found hers, pulling a moan from somewhere deep inside her as his arms wrapped around her waist pulling her closer. His kisses were like no other. Where Damon's had wrecked her train of thought, Klaus's fueled the engine. His hands that gently caressed her skin were more than electric. They set her ablaze and had her wanting to feel his touch everywhere all at once.

When he rolled them over and attacked her neck with kisses and nibbles she turned her head to the side giving him better access as she moaned, "Klaus." Her legs wrapped around his waist pulling him to her as she dug her fingertips into his bare back. He kissed down her neck to her chest then back up to her lips, grinding into her, teasing her through the two layers of fabric. "God, you feel good."

He chuckled as he rolled them back over and sat up bring her with him. He grabbed the front of her thin pajama tank top and ripped it open. She smiled when he broke the kiss and watched her face as he held her back with one hand and slid the other over her breast, kneading it before he gently twisted her nipped between his thumb and pointer finger making her breath hitch and a moan leave her lips before she bit the bottom one. The lust the action brought to her eyes was mirrored in his as he slipped his hand down her chest, pushing her to lie back on to the bed.

* * *

A few seconds passed as they came down off their high before Klaus grabbed the comforter and pulled it over them. She intertwined her legs with his and looked him in the eyes. "Have I told you you're amazing recently?" she asked bringing a smile to his lips as he shook his head no. "Well you are." She grabbed his hand and threaded their fingers together.

"Have you noticed that you no longer revel in the calm after the storm?" he asked. Since she had come back from her shattered soul, she no longer wanted to cuddle in silence after they made love. She just nodded. "Why is that?"

"Because I came back different." She answered. "If I would have simply flipped my switch back on, without Elijah doing what he did, I would still be beating myself up over all the people I killed, but…I'm not. Even before I made the decision to become a vampire I struggled with this…darkness, inside if me. The same part of me that wanted to tie my grandfather to a chair and break every bone in his body and beat him as he so mercilessly beat me. It was there even when I lived as Hannah. I would have poisoned Father had my sister not stopped me, but when I came back it's like I've learned to accept it and control it."

He let go of her hand and cupped her cheek in his hand. "And you say there's nothing admirable about you."

She smiled and slipped her hand over his. "My mind is naturally a calmer place these days, so there really isn't a calm after the storm anymore." She took his hand off her face and kissed his palm. "It doesn't mean I'm going to go around murdering people for the hell of it, it just means that if I have to kill again I'll feel bad, but it's who I am and I can't change it."

* * *

A week turned into a month then into two. Klaus, much to Katie's dismay, had been taking his time with figuring out how to get Elijah back.

Currently Kate sat on a stool in front of an easel with a pallet in one hand and a paint brush in the other, receiving a lesson from Klaus. She didn't think art would be something she would be into. She didn't think she was creative enough to turn a blank canvas into something beautiful the way Klaus did, but she had to say painting was relaxing and she now understood why it was one of Klaus's passions.

Klaus stood at his easel that was positioned so that she could see what he was doing. Every once in a while he would stop painting and give her time to copy what he had just done. More than once he tried to look at her canvas, but every time he did she pointed her paint brush at him and threatened to turn him into her canvas, getting an amused smile from him. "I do not hear progress." He pointed out knowing she could hear him despite the ear buds in her ears filling them with a playlist of alternative rock music and a few pop songs.

"I'm thinking." She told him defensively.

"What is there to think about?" he asked with a confused look as he stopped painting and turned around.

"It's more like what I'm trying not to think about." She told him with a flirty smirk and he gave her a look that told her to explain. "Your butt looks really good in the jeans you're wearing. It's kind of hard to stop myself from thinking about painting it with edible paint just so I can bite it."

He laughed and tried to walk over to her, but she pointed her brush at him with a warning look. "If you have drawn a stick figure on that canvas I'll never give you another lesson." He told her only half serious.

"Yes you will and no I haven't." she told him then started painting again. "I aim to impress." She pointed out then took her ear buds out. "Now turn back around." She told him with a twirl of her finger.

He smiled and shook his head at her as he turned around and started painting again. "Edible paint is defiantly going on the shopping list."

Katie laughed and got back to her painting. "So am I the first girl you've given a panting lesson to?" she asked curiously.

"If I say no will you be disappointed?" he asked not looking away from his canvas.

"No. I'm sure you've had a lot of lady friends in your one thousand years on this earth." she told him honestly.

"Lady friends yes, girlfriends however…not as many as you might think." He answered. "But no, this isn't the first time I've given a lesson to a woman." He paused, giving her time to catch up. "This is the first time my student wouldn't let me see their progress though."

"I wouldn't sing you an incomplete song. So I'm not going to show you an incomplete painting." She told him not looking away from the brush in her hand that smeared tan paint over the canvas carving out the archway that Klaus had penciled onto the canvas as a guide.

"You need more paint on your brush." He critiqued without even being able to see what she was doing.

"How can you tell?" she asked looking at her brush.

"If I can hear the bristles of the brush scraping against the canvas your brush is too dry." He told her so she filled her brush with paint again like he had shown her then held it above the canvas for him to see. "Better." She got back to her painting and when she caught up to him she looked up, letting him know she was ready to move on.

Only after she finished the finale steps and was satisfied with her work did she allow Klaus to walk around the easel to look at what she had done. After a few seconds of him appraising the painting she couldn't help breaking the silence. "You can say it sucks. You won't hurt my feelings."

"It doesn't suck. I actually think you have potential." He said with a point at the painting.

"You have potential." She echoed back. "That's the same thing my English teacher told me about my creative writing project." She told him then looked over her shoulder to where he stood slightly behind her with his hands behind his back. "It sucked." She whisper yelled.

"Perhaps you simply lack confidence." He argued and she rolled her eyes at him and looked at her still wet painting. "It is not bad considering you'd never even touched a paint brush before today." He wrapped his arms around her waist and set his chin on her shoulder. "You aimed to impress and hit the bull's eye."

"I think you're full of it, but it doesn't matter. You know why?" she asked as she hopped down off the stool and set her paint pallet on it.

He wrapped his long sleeve shirt covered arms around her waist and pulled her into him, "Why?"

"Because I had fun and I found it relaxing. Which was the main goal of this lesson was it not?" she asked letting her eyes travel his face.

"It was." He answered then caught her lips with his. As they kissed a wave of playfulness overcame her and she opened her eyes and looked over at her abandoned paint pallet. Her pointer finger touched the blob of green paint and as they kissed she drew a heart on his cheek. At the feel of the cold wet paint he stopped kissing her and sighed, not opening his eyes. "You did not just-" she booped him on the nose with her paint covered finger tip, cutting him off and he opened his eyes, her playfulness mirrored in them.

He growled and wiped his nose on her cheek making her yelp and giggle. They were jerked out of their fun when Rebekah's voice practically shook the walls, "Klaus!" Katie jumped from the sharp unexpected tone and Klaus rolled his eyes. "Get out here and tell me where our brothers at!"

Klaus sighed, went to the doors to the room and pulled them open, "Enough with all the shouting." Katie went to the bathroom and washed the paint from her face then brought the wet cloth to Klaus so he could to the same. "I assume the six dead vampires were your doing?" he asked.

"They were very rude. Trying to victimize a poor, innocent girl just trying to find her way to the quarter. So sorry. Were they friends of yours?" Rebekah smiled. "Oh that's right, you don't' have any friends."

"I do have friends. I have Katie." He argued.

Rebekah looked at Katie who leaned her hip on the brown leather couch Klaus was standing next to. "Oh, right, your baby momma." She told Klaus then looked at Katie. "Your besties are very upset with you for missing graduation and pretty much disappearing off the face of the earth."

"They can continue to be upset with me because I can't make myself lie to them and I can't tell them the truth. All I can do is leave them be." Katie replied.

"You're choice." She brushed it off and looked at Katie's stomach. "I was expecting to see some kind of supernatural, miracle, baby bump, guess you're not showing yet." She pointed out.

Katie smoothed her flowing tank top down showing Rebekah the small bump of her stomach. "I don't exactly have a missed period to go off of, but I think I'm somewhere around 16 or 17 weeks."

"Really?" Klaus asked with a look over at her and she hummed nodded. "How do you know how far along you are?"

"Considering the baby's heartbeat was so small and quiet when Sophie told me I was pregnant I can only assume that I was around six to seven weeks at that point." she explained liking the curiosity on Klaus's face. "And it's not an exact science, but my stomach matches the sixteen and seventeen week mark of every week by week stomach transformation picture I could find online."

"We're off topic." Rebekah spoke up.

"Right, we were talking about my friends. I also have Marcel." Klaus told her. "You remember him don't you? Yes, of course you do. He fancies himself the king of the quarter now, and he has these rules about killing vampires. It'll be fun to see what sort of punishment he comes up with for you."

"I don't care about Marcel or his rules. Elijah told me that he promised Katie he would be here for her and he does not welsh on promises. Where is he?" Rebekah demanded.

"I would argue that he is wishy washy when it comes to his promises to Katie." Klaus sat down on the couch and pulled Katie down to sit next to him with her legs draped over his lap. "Perhaps he's on holiday, or taking a long autumn nap upstairs." He pointed up with a smirk. "Well, go on. Take a look around." Rebekah walked past him. "You remember this house as well as I."

Rebekah turned around and looked at him, "I remember everything." She then looked at Katie. "Care for an eye opening look at the father of your child?" she held her hand out to Katie. "Or are you still on vervain?"

"I'm not on vervain. I don't know if it will hurt the baby. So sure, why not?" Katie got out of Klaus's lap and slapped her hand into Rebekah's. She was taken back to what looked like the mid 1800's. A party was taking place in the house they were currently living in.

"I remember how the drunken fool of a governor hid away all of our vampire sins in exchange for gold." Rebekah's voice served as a commentary to what Katie was seeing in her minds eye. _Klaus stood in front of the fireplace with a set of twin women on his arms. He gave Rebekah a grin as he headed upstairs with them._ "I remember the lavish parties he threw as if to impress you." _Rebekah walked over to a handsome, expensively dressed man and kissed him. _"I remember finding a moment of affection with the governor's son, Emil." _The view changed to the upstairs landing where Klaus sat on a sofa with the twins, both with bite marks on their neck, both passed out if not dead while he fed on one of their wrists_. "And I remember even Elijah was happy with Celeste." _Elijah was kissing the neck of a beautiful almond skinned woman that had her back against the wall._

"_Your brother, he has gone too far." Celeste spoke with a French accent._

_Elijah looked away from the woman to Klaus. "Niklaus, there is no hope for you, is there?" Klaus just looked at Elijah and bit into the woman's wrist with a growl._

"_Are we interrupting?" Rebekah asked as she walked over to them holding Emil's hand._

"_Yes." Klaus answered dropping the woman's hand._

"_No." Elijah answered not fully turning away from Celeste._

"_Dearest Elijah," Rebekah started talking making Elijah move to the woman's side so that Rebekah had his full attention, "You've only ever wished happiness for me. Emil and I are in love. Please let me turn him."_

_Klaus started laughing. Elijah and Rebekah ignored him. "Rebekah, the governor has graciously agreed to hide a lot of our…" Elijah paused and looked back at Klaus and the two dead women, "indiscretions." He looked back at Rebekah. "It would not do to turn his only son into one of us."_

"_Please. For me." Rebekah begged._

"_It's not gonna happen, sister." Klaus stood up. "If we turned every man you dropped your knickers for, then human beings would cease to exist and we'd have no bloody food."_

Katie bit her lips closed, keeping her comments to herself.

"_How dare you sir!" Emil stepped up to Klaus. "You would do well to-"_

_Klaus grabbed him by his neck and started walking over to the railing. Elijah and Rebekah begged him to stop, but he threw him over the railing killing him. Rebekah started sobbing._

Rebekah let go of Katie's hand and gave her a look that asked what she thought of what she just saw. "You get around and he can be an ass. Neither of these things are news to me or my business to judge."

"No wonder he likes you so much, you gloss over his terrible qualities." Rebekah told her with an eye roll.

"Emil wasn't good enough for you." Klaus spoke up.

"Nobody was good enough for me, Nik, you made sure of that." Rebekah told him as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Now where's Elijah?"

Klaus phone vibrated and he pulled it out of his pocket, looked at it then stood up and put it back and walked over to Katie. "Drinks with Marcel again?" she asked as he grabbed her sides and looked down at her.

"Elijah told me your plan to take apart Marcel's empire piece by piece. I don't remember it involving you two drinking New Orleans dry together." Rebekah complained.

Klaus moved to stand next to Katie with his arm around her waist. "I know you don't have many friends, Rebekah, but what some friends do when they get together is they drink. And when they drink, they tell secrets. Marcel has somehow found a way to control the entirety of witches in the quarter, and I aim to uncover the how so I might take it for myself. Although I assure you, finding Elijah is on my honey-do list." He turned back to Katie.

"Have a bourbon for me." she told him wishing she could go with him and get out of the house.

"I will." He pecked her on the lips and they all went to the door. Klaus pulled it open, but he stopped and looked back at Rebekah. "Oh, and welcome home, little sister."

Rebekah rolled her eyes as Klaus left then looked at Katie. "You two are disgustingly sweet together." Katie let a small smile play at the corners of her lips. "Too bad it won't last long." Her smile fell. "Nik doesn't settle down. He's most likely just playing with you until he gets his hands on whatever is cooking in your tum."

Katie's face turned hard, "Believe what you want, Rebekah, I don't care. Just don't try to drag me into your disputes with your bother." She left Rebekah standing in the doorway.

Katie was in the parlor writing in her journal when she heard that Klaus was back. He and Rebekah were arguing about Elijah, eventually he told her what he had done to and with Elijah. "Katie!"

"Yes?" Katie called tiredly knowing Rebekah would just keep shouting until she found her.

"Did you know that he handed Elijah over to Marcel?" Rebekah asked with a point at Klaus who was standing behind her and Katie nodded. "And you let him hand him over?"

Katie leaned back in the arm chair and crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, I'm sorry, do I have a voice now?" Katie asked with an attitude induced cock of her head. "I thought I was just his play thing until he 'gets his hands on whatever is cooking in my tum.'." She made air quotes around Rebekah's words then picked her pen back up and went back to the entry she was working on. When she was done with the entry she went outside and found Rebekah sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, taking in the night air. She sat down in the chair next to Rebekah. "Seriously, Rebekah, what's your problem with me?"

"I didn't mind you being with Klaus at first because you needed the stick removed from your ass, but you were supposed to choose my good brother. Not get knocked up by my bad one." She told her making Katie frown at her. "You're too good for him." she admitted making Katie remember that Klaus killed Emil. "Emil wasn't the only boyfriend of mine that Klaus killed. He did it again, and again, every time I found someone to care about. He just kept doing it until finally I stopped falling in love. He said he was protecting me from my mistakes, that no one was good enough for his little sister. Until one day someone was."

"Marcel, I'm guessing." Katie asked then a thought struck her. "You're not going to try to kill me to get back at him are you?"

"I'd never kill a pregnant woman." she answered. "And you guessed right. Klaus caught Marcel kissing me and because Marcel was like a son to him and he couldn't kill him. So he daggered me to give me a lesson in what I could and couldn't take from him. I stayed in that coffin for fifty-two years. When I woke up he told me he had given Marcel a choice, un-dagger me and live out his human years with me or leave me and Klaus would turn him just as Marcel had always wanted. Marcel chose vampirism over me."

"Ouch." Katie commented. "I'm sorry."

"It's quite alright, I got over it and moved on eventually." Rebekah assured her.

"So now that you know that Marcel has Elijah, why aren't you going after Elijah yourself? You're an immortal just like Klaus. The only thing that can kill you is the white oak stake and I'm pretty sure Marcel doesn't have it." Katie asked.

"You should know the answer to that question by now." Rebekah replied. "I did not over look my coffin downstairs."

Katie bit her lips closed and looked around in thought. After a few seconds she pulled out her phone and started a text message to Rebekah that she didn't intend on sending. _"Klaus does not know this, but those daggers are not where he thinks they are. I found them and have hidden them._" She held the phone out to Rebekah. After reading it she looked up at Katie with a smirk. Katie erased the message. "Like I told Klaus, it takes a village and I need both of my villagers free of daggers."

"Perhaps Elijah is right, you might just be exactly what Klaus needs." Rebekah told her then stood up and walked away.

Katie went to the room that she and Klaus now shared and found him lying in bed but not asleep. "I found out why Rebekah's been such a bitch to me." she told him quietly as she changed into a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top.

"And why is that?" he asked.

"Apparently I'm too good for you." she answered.

"I could have told you that." he told her.

"I don't think she believes you deserve to be happy after denying her happiness so many times." Katie thought out loud.

"Do you agree with her?" he asked, his eyes taking in her growing stomach before she pulled the tank top over her head.

"Of course not." She answered, her tone implying that his question was stupid.

"Good." He told her with a smile as she slid into bed and laid down next to him resting her head on his shoulder as he slid his hand over her stomach.

* * *

The next morning she woke up to Klaus rubbing her shoulder. "Wake up."

"Why?" she groaned not opening her eyes.

"You're sweating." He wiped his hand over her forehead and she opened her eyes to see moisture on his fingers. "Are you feeling alright?" he asked knowing vampires don't sweat unless there is something really wrong with them, like thinking a piece of white oak stake was working its way to their heart.

"I feel okay. I'm just hot." She sighed realizing that the sheets were sticking to her skin. As she threw them off of her and slid up her stomach growled. "And hungry." She pushed herself out of bed and walked over to the thermostat on the wall. "It's eighty degrees in this house. I'm hot because it's hot in here." she said with a confused shake of her head. "And I'm not hungry for blood." She looked at Klaus with a frown. "What the hell's happening to me?"

"I do not know." He whispered looking down at her with worry clear in his wide blue eyes.

"Do you think Sophie's doing this?" she asked as she tried to turn the temperature down, but it was already set to sixty eight. The air conditioning clearly wasn't working.

"I will find out and have someone see to the air conditioning. In the meantime, you find a way to cool down and eat something." He told her as he started getting dressed.

Katie threw the window to the room open and stuck her head out feeling warm breeze on her face. "Well that's not going to cut it." she sighed then looked down and saw the pool. When she turned around she saw that Klaus was already gone. She didn't have a swim suit so she threw on a set of underwear, a tank top and some Nike shorts then grabbed a bowl of cereal out of the kitchen and ate it as she went out to the pool. Thankfully since it was just now sun up the water was nice and cool.

She had eaten two bowls of granola cereal and was floating on her back in the middle of the pool when Klaus and Sophie found her. She swam over to the edge of the pool and Sophie kneeled down. "Witches are not the cause." Klaus told her.

"He said you woke up hot and hungry." Sophie said and she nodded. "Anything else feel off?"

"No, not that I'm aware of." Katie said with a shrug.

"Are you still craving blood?" Sophie asked and to answer her question Katie let the blood rush to her eyes then pushed it back. "I'll take that as a yes. Does the sun still burn?" Klaus stepped to the side, putting Katie in his shadow. She took off her daylight ring and set it on the edge of the pool then held her hand outside the shadow. Her skin sizzled and she jerked her hand back and put her ring back on. "What about speed?" Katie got out of the pool then whooshed around it. She then looked up at the pool house roof and jumped, landing on top of it. She hopped back down and whooshed over to Sophie. To test her healing, knowing that if she didn't heal Klaus had her back, she bit her wrist. The three of them watched as the teeth marks healed.

"So what's the diagnosis?" Klaus asked.

"I'm not a vampire doctor, but I think this is nature's way of keeping a balance. You're not supposed to be able to get pregnant. So nature is making you human to compensate. I can only guess that as your pregnancy advances you are going to start getting more human traits and possibly lose your vampire ones."

"The hits just keep on coming don't they?" Katie sighed and walked over to a lounge chair and sat down.

"And by the time she gives birth?" Klaus asked.

"Who knows?" Sophie shrugged. "She could still be a vampire or she could be completely human by then." They all got quiet for a moment, lost in thought. "If you guys are done with me I have a restaurant I need to get back to."

"Yeah, we're done." Katie told her looking up at her from where she'd been staring down at the concrete. "Thanks."

As Sophie walked away Klaus walked over to Katie and sat down next to her. She propped her head up with her elbow on her leg and cheek in her hand. Klaus pulled her into his side. "Vampire or human, I will not let anything happen to you."

She wanted to tell him not to make promises he couldn't keep. Hybrid or not even he couldn't save her from the claws of death if they came for her. Instead she wrapped her arms around his waist not caring that she was soaking his thin long sleeved shirt and pressed her face into his chest.

After a while she pulled back and moved around to lie back on the lounger with her legs in his lap. "So where are we on the air conditioning front?"

He pulled his phone out and looked at his texts. "They should be here any minute." Not two seconds after he said that a van with a company logo on the side of it pulled up in the drive out front.

"Awesome. Until they're done with that I'm gonna be out here," she told him as they both stood up, "taking a swim to deal with the muggy Louisiana heat." She grabbed her cell phone and turned on some music before she dove into the pool.

When Klaus came to tell her that the air was fixed he found her doing hand stands in the pool. When she came back up for air she saw him smiling at her. "I always forget you were a cheerleader."

"Should I find ways to remind you?" she asked with an arched brow as she swam over to the steps and walked up them.

"Perhaps you should ask Caroline to send you your uniform." He told her with a smirk and his hands folded in front of him.

"I might just do that." she laughed then saw the air conditioning van leave. "Is it fixed?"

"Yes, it should be cool soon." He told her placing his hand on her cheek, hating what this pregnancy was doing to her.

They were walking through the back door when Rebekah found them. "You were right. The girl, Cami, she's the key. Marcel likes her, and because of that I got to see the secret weapon of his that you've been going on about."

Katie had heard about the secret weapon that let Marcel have control over the witches, but she had no idea who Cami was. She made a mental note to ask Klaus about her later. "Well, don't stand on ceremony. What is it?" Klaus asked.

"It's not a what it's a who. A girl, Davina. She can't be more than 16 and I have never felt power like that." Rebekah told him.

"A witch." Klaus gathered.

"She's not just any witch. She's something I've never seen before, something beyond powerful and now because of you she has Elijah. Who knows what she could do to him." Rebekah told them.

"Where is she?" Klaus asked.

Rebekah opened her mouth to answer, but stopped. "That clever bitch…I don't know."

"Why not?" Katie asked curiously.

"She wiped my memory of the location." Rebekah answered then looked at Klaus. "Marcel possesses a weapon bigger and more powerful than an original and you handed our brother to him!" she yelled at him. "How many times will Elijah forgive you? How long until his hope for your redemption finally dies?" she turned and headed for the door.

"I did what I had to do!" Klaus yelled at her. "Marcel took our home."

"And our home is worthless without family!" Rebekah turned and yelled back. "I am finding Elijah, whatever it takes. Are you going to help me?"

"Whatever it takes." He agreed then looked back at Katie, who had been standing a few feet away from the arguing siblings, then back at Rebekah.

"I'm…gonna go dry off." Katie said with a point up stairs.

"Yes why are you soaked anyway?" Rebekah asked.

"I'll let Klaus take this one." Katie told her then went upstairs and left Klaus to tell or not tell Rebekah about the new development.

* * *

That afternoon she was sitting on the bed, working on a song in the back of her journal with ear buds in her ears when Klaus walked in and looked over her shoulder at the book. _I will hold my head up high. You will never see me cry. I'll smile and say I'm good, but I would fall apart if I could._ She wrote a line then scratched it out, stared at the book for a second, wrote something else then scratched it out again, sighed then threw the book into the corner of the room with an aggravated growl. He pulled an ear bud out making her jump and look behind her. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to know you're suffering from writers block." He told her and she took the other bud out of her ear. "What's weighing you down, Little Phoenix?" he sat down beside her and pulled his leg up on the bed.

"The fact that your little phoenix may very well be burning out for the last time." She told him quietly not looking at him, but at the brown, tan and red comforter on their bed.

"Sweetheart," he sighed and pulled her into him, "you are not going to die, do you hear me?"

"We don't know that." she argued. "What if having this baby takes everything out of me and I simply slip away?" a tear slipped down her cheek and he wiped it away. "What if by the time this baby comes I am 100 percent human? What if-"

He put his hand over her mouth to shut her up and when he moved his hand she bit her lips shut. "We could spend the coming months asking what-ifs." he pointed out. "Or we could take things day by day and make the most of each passing moment." Katie took in a deep breath as she lifted her shoulders then let them fall as she let the breath out. "We are in un-traversed territory. Do not let your mind run away with you, yes?"

"Okay." She told him with nod.

"Yeah?" he asked again looking for a little more oomph from her.

"Yeah." She answered again, but it wasn't good enough.

"Smile." He told her and she pulled her lips back awkwardly showing off her perfect teeth. "You're silently growling at me again, Love. Smile or I will find a way to make you smile."

She pursed her lips and glared at him exaggeratedly making him realize that she was now messing with him. When he started tickling her sides and attacked her neck with a growl, a genuine laugh left her. "Okay, okay, okay. You win. I'm smiling." She laughed and he pulled away to look her in the eyes and she slipped her hand over his cheek. "Thank you, Big Bad Wolf."

"Any time, Little Phoenix." He replied then pressed his lips to hers. When the kiss broke she pulled her tank top over her head, then took his thin long sleeved shirt off him and pulled it over her head. She gathered up the sleeves that hung over her hands in her fist and wrapped her arms around herself. "If you are cold I can turn the air up." He told her with a smirk.

"I know where the thermostat is at, but this way I get to smell like you." she argued and sniffed her shoulder. He shook his head and moved around so that he was leaning back on the head board then pulled her into his lap. "Plus I like the view." He chuckled at her. "Seriously though, if you don't want me to wear your shirts I won't. I know some guys complain that girls boobs stretch out the fabric and they don't fit right anymore."

"Believe it or not most men find it quite sexy when their woman wears their shirt." He assured her and she smiled, a bit of a blush coloring her cheeks for the first time in a while. She got quiet, memorizing his lean muscular torso as she trailed the fingertips of one hand over it. "What's on your mind love?" he asked knowing from her hand that played with her necklace that she was thinking about something more than just how much she liked the view.

"Who's Cami?" she asked not looking up from her hands on his torso.

"A bartender at Rousseau's." he answered simply.

"A bartender is somehow the key to finding Davina?" she asked trying to make sense of the information he'd been withholding. He'd been giving her detailed play by plays of his outings, but he hadn't mentioned Cami.

"She has caught Marcel's eye and she's human. We can use that against him." he explained.

"I've only met Marcel once, but he totally had an 'I'm hot, I know it and I'm a total player' vibe going on. What's so special about a bartender that would make a guy like him so interested?" She asked.

"She's beautiful and an abnormal physiology major, so she's smart." He answered.

"Beautiful, smart, probably able to read you like an open book…doesn't sound like your type at all." Katie replied with an attitude.

"I that jealousy I hear?" he asked with a bit of a frown.

"A little, yeah." She answered, not one for being vague or playing silly immature games.

"I thought you trusted me." he pointed out.

"I do it's just…" she sighed, hating that she was being like this, but she couldn't help it. "You haven't mentioned her and apparently she has a decent part to play in the destruction of Marcel's kingdom. Meanwhile I'm stuck here while you go out and about without any kind of indication that you're taken. And you're hot and as far as anyone knows available and the thought of someone hitting on you makes me want to punch something." she closed her eyes and shook her head. "I know I'm being insecure and silly and jealous an-" he cut her off with a kiss then pulled away and cupped her cheek in his hand.

"I haven't told you about her because if I did I'd have to tell you that I compelled her to go on a date Marcel tonight then to tell me where he goes and who he sees. I'd have to tell you that I am toying with a woman's emotions and making her date a man she sees as bad for her in order to use her as a spy." he explained. "I knew you wouldn't approve and you are stressed enough as it is. I didn't want to make things worse."

She sighed and brushed her fingers through her hair. "I…have a confession." He pursed his lips with a frown and tilted his head at her. "I found the daggers that you hid under Rebekah's coffin and moved them. I didn't tell you because I knew you would get mad when I tell you that I'm not going to tell you where I put them."

Klaus moved to the edge of the bed, opened the bottom drawer of his bedside table, took out a false bottom and pulled out two daggers wrapped in a dark blue cloth. "You mean these daggers?" he asked as he showed them to her.

"You knew?" she asked with a confused frown and he nodded. "Are you mad?"

"I was at first, but I know you just as well as you now me, Sweetheart." He told her with a smirk. "You're protecting your village. Doing your best to ensure our baby has the best possible life. I can't be mad at you for that."

"And I can't be mad at you for using Cami to get to Marcel. I'm sorry for getting jealous and for moving the daggers." She told him as she scratched the back of her neck, ashamed of her actions.

"It seems we have underestimated each other." he told her.

"Well, your super heightened personality trait is your temper so…" she pointed out.

"Yes, but yours is you open minded understanding." He countered. "And it seems that when it comes to you…you have rubbed off on me." she blinked and gave him a fleeting smile. "No more secrets."

"No more secrets." She agreed with a nod.

He took a deep breath as he picked up the daggers and wrapped them back up in the cloth then sighed as he said, "I am going to regret this…" he grabbed her hand and put the daggers in it then closed her hand around them. "Hide them better this time. That loose brick was way too easy to spot."

"Well, I did learn my object hiding skills from the same guy who hid the moonstone in a bowl of soaps and a white oak stake in the pile of firewood." She shrugged. "You sure you won't hate me the next time you feel like daggering one of your siblings?"

"I'm sure I'll be livid, but I could never hate you." he answered as he watched her lean over the edge of the bed and put the daggers back where he'd gotten them from to be hidden later.

"And you already know I could never hate you." she told him as she moved back to sit in his lap. "So did you tell Rebekah about the new development with me and this pregnancy?" she asked as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Yes I did." He answered.

"And now that a rush has been put on the order of one original brother, what's the plan?" she asked.

"I'm simply going to ask Marcel for him back." he answered simply.

"And if he tells you no?" she asked

"War." He answered as if it were the obvious answer.

"Awesome." She sighed and let her head fall forward onto his chest. After a few minutes she lifted her head and looking him in the eyes. "So I've been wondering for a while now-"

"Uh oh." He commented.

"It's not an uh oh." She told him with a shake of her head and a pointed look. "What did you look like when you were a kid? You've seen baby pictures of me and pictures of me growing up, but I've only ever seen you as you are now, and in the early to mid 1800's when you had long hair. I like it like this, by the way." She said with a point to his short hair.

Klaus took her hand and kissed the underside of her wrist and the image of a young boy looking at his reflection in the trickling water of a river took over her minds eye. He looked to be around nine or ten with light blond hair that stopped at his eyebrows, blue eyes and cheeks that Katie liked to call pinch-able. When he took his lips from her wrist the image faded. "You were a cute kid." She told him with small smile.

"And you were a chubby kid." He told her with a cheeky smile.

"I grew out of it…eventually." She told him defensively. "Speaking of which, I'm hungry." She pushed herself off of him and headed down to the kitchen.

He watched her start cooking dinner. "Elijah said you couldn't cook."

"I couldn't cook in the eighteen hundreds." Katie corrected him. "And I really don't like cooking now since I was forced to take home economics by my misogynistic grandfather." She told him. "But I can, if I have to." He watched her place two chicken breasts on a cutting board. "Do you like chicken parmesan?" she asked as she started looking through the drawers in the kitchen for a meat mallet. He hummed a positive answer. "Good because it's the only thing we have the ingredients for and it also happens to me one of my best dishes." He watched her pound the chicken breasts flat then start getting ready to batter the chicken. "I should probably start eating healthier now that I can't rely on my vampire metabolism to keep me from gaining weight." She pointed at him with the mallet, "So no more ice cream apologies."

"Should I remove the four pints from the freezer then?" he asked with a point at the refrigerator.

"Hold up, let's not go that far." He lifted an eyebrow at her. "Okay, yeah maybe." She sighed. "I think being a vampire has spoiled me even more than you have."

After watching her cook for a few minutes he hopped down off the stool and placed his hands on her hips turning her to face him then pecked her on the lips. "I'll be back."

"Where are you going?" she asked with a motion to the oven.

"It's a surprise." He answered then kissed her again and let her go. "I'll be back before dinners ready."

* * *

She was setting the table in the small dining room when Klaus walked in with a bottle of already chilled wine and two glasses and set them on the table. "It's non-alcoholic." He pointed out before she could say anything.

While she got their plates he poured the wine then sat down for dinner. After they had eaten half of the dinner she asked, "So…what do you think?"

"If I didn't know you didn't like cooking I would suggest you go to culinary school and become a chef." He told her making her smile with pride. They tried the wine at the same time and she was relived when he made a face and forced himself to swallow. Katie couldn't even make herself swallow it and spit it back into the glass. "You're cooking is a hit and my beverage choice was a miserable plop."

"I appreciate the thought." Katie told him trying to make him feel better.

"No worries I always have a plan B." he told her and a woman walked into the room, set a clean wine glass down in front of them then cut her wrist and filled Katie's glass then Klaus's. "I thought you might be getting tired of cold blood bags."

Katie took a drink and hummed at the flavor and warmth of it. "You thought right." The woman walked over to stand next to the fireplace and tucked her hands neatly in front of her. "You gotta bring girls home more often." She told him as she set her glass down. When she looked up at him she saw a suggestive smirk on his face. "That…is not how I meant that." she pointed out with an awkward look.

"I know, love." He laughed. "And I would bring you fresh blood more often, but this town has rules about feeding on the locals. I still don't know who's local and who's not. So I nabbed one of the tourists from Marcel's party before she drank too much or was fed on by any of Marcel's nightwalkers." She looked over at the girls hand to see and M stamped on it with black ink.

"You're awesome." She told him with a smile then took another drink of the blood.

He was starting to understand that 'you're awesome' was her version of I love you. The thought made him start to wonder when she was going to let herself say it and give into him. They were having a child together and dealing with everything her pregnancy brought with it. What was it going to take for her to finally let herself fully have him?

They ate in silence until they were done. "You've gotten quiet on me, Big Bad Wolf." she pointed out. "Something on your mind?"

"Nope, just enjoying your cooking before it gets cold." He answered with a shake of his head.

She didn't believe him, but she let it go. "So, since we can't go out on dates, what do you say we sit down at least once a week and have dinner together?"

"Will you cook?" he asked with an interested look as he put his elbows on the table and placed his hands together.

"Of course." She answered.

"I thought you didn't like cooking." He pointed at her.

"I like cooking for you." she admitted with a shy smile. "I can't impress you with my sad painting skills, but I can with my cooking."

"Then it's a date." He told her then sat back in the chair and Katie smiled.

"You think Sophie would share her gumbo recipe with me?" she asked curiously.

"I thought you said you wouldn't be able to even smell it without getting sick." He said with an amused smirk.

"Now that the morning sickness has backed off for the most part I've kind of been craving it." she admitted and he smiled, happy that she was finding things about New Orleans that she liked.

* * *

That night they laid in bed, Katie on her back with Klaus's hand on her stomach as they both listened to the baby's heart beat. "What do you want it to be?" she asked curiously.

"Healthy." He answered.

"No, what gender?" she laughed.

"A strong, beautiful, green eyed, auburn or copper haired girl so I can spoil like her mother." He looked up from her stomach to her eyes. "What about you?"

"I want a strong, sweet, blond headed, blue eyed boy like his handsome father." She answered. "A prince to take over his father's kingdom one day. That way his father can show his mother the world." She smiled when Klaus smiled and pressed his lips to hers not taking his hand off her stomach.


	41. Chapter 41

**Warning:** Not necessarily smut, but dirty talk I guess?

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 41**

A giggle sounded through the room as Klaus teased Katie's sides making her squirm under him. "You're so ticklish." He laughed.

"And you…are the most un-ticklish man ever." She complained.

"Perhaps you just haven't found the right spot yet." He told her making her narrow her eyes at him in thought. "You're welcome to continue your search." He rolled onto his back taking her with him and she sat up, straddling him.

"Hmm," she pursed her lips and pulled them to the side, "nah." She fell down bracing herself on her hands on the bed. "I think I'll let it be a mystery for a little while longer." She started kissing his bicep, where his feather tattoo began then kissed her way up it following the birds that branched off of the feather to the last one that sat just under his collarbone then up to his shoulder where she gently bit him, pulling a pleasured sound from him. "I have other ways of making you smile."

"Oh really, like what?" he asked curiously as he slid his hands up her thighs to hold her hips.

"Flattery for one." She answered and she could tell he wanted to smile, but was resisting. "Or there's always doing something random. Like…" she quickly licked the tip of his nose making him wrinkle it and laugh quietly. "See, there're those cute dimples I like so much." She sat up and looked down at him.

"Cute huh?" He asked.

"Yep." She told him with a flirty smile. "I also find your accent cute along with your butt, but you already knew that one. Let's see what else do I find cute about you?" She asked herself as she looked up in thought. "How your hair gets a little curly when you let it grow out." She told him as she looked at his messy dirty blond hair. "Oh, the way you hold me super close with my face pressed into your neck at night. Even when you're completely asleep you don't let go."

"Why is that cute?" he asked.

"Because it lets me know that even in your subconscious you want to keep me close. It shows a certain amount of neediness and it feels good to feel needed." she told him with a shrug then kissed him and rolled over pulling him with her then wrapped her legs around him.

"You know…" he started but was cut off when she started nibbling on his neck pulling a sigh from him, "If we do this every morning and night you will soon tire of me." he warned her.

"Not possible." She replied then bit his neck a little harder, wishing they could blood share. "Unless…you're getting tired of me." she stopped and looked up at him.

He pressed his hips into hers letting her feel how much she affected him. "Does that feel like I'm getting tired of you?" he whispered then started kissing her neck making her eyes slip shut and tilt her head to the side.

"No, but I'm sure guys can fake it just as easily as girls." She argued.

"Have you ever-"

"Not with you." she answered before he could finish the question.

"Now my interest is peaked." He said as he sat up on his knees and she slid up to sit in his lap with her legs wrapped around him and he held her close with his hand on her upper back. "Who, prey tell, have you faked it with?"

"Ronan. He was built like a wrestler and most girls might go for that, but in case you haven't noticed beefy guys with muscles bigger than my head don't really do it for me. I would have rather faced the cat-o-nine tails than the consummation of our marriage." She told him as she let her eyes travel his body, thinking about how perfect Klaus was.

He'd suffered through some horrible things in his life, but he'd never been forced to have sex with someone. He'd also _done_ some horrible things and rape was never one of them. "No one should ever have to go through that." he told her quietly with a pained look in his eyes.

"Yeah, well even in my first life, circumstances shaped me into the perfect actress." She sighed not looking up. "I had to act like Father was the upstanding guy the town believed him to be, act like he didn't slice my back open on a daily basis. Act like I had no idea how my back had healed so fast when really my nanny and her daughter were cailleach." She used the Irish word for witch reminding him that she still spoke Irish. "I knew how to act like everything was okay, but my wedding night was my biggest acting gig to date. Either I did a good job or Ronan just didn't care."

"Did he know you didn't want him?" he asked and she shook her head no. "How long were you with him?" he asked not being able to remember if she said in her journal.

"Eight years." she answered.

"And in all those years you never once-"

"Nope." She answered his question before he could finish it.

"Do me a favor, _never_ fake it with me." he told her as he laid her back on the bed and looked into her eyes. "If you're not in the mood or you're not into it, just tell me. It won't be first time you got me all hot and bothered then left me hanging." Remembering the first time they kissed she wrinkled her nose and covered her face with a laugh. She moved her hand and looked at him with slightly apologetic eyes. "Just so you know…pleasuring myself to the thought of you that night did little to ebb my desire to have you."

His words and the visions they brought to mind made a wave of pleasure shoot through her and she smiled, biting her lip before she let it slip out of her teeth. "Do you know why I was awake the night after the twenties dance?" she asked as she tightened her legs around him and he shook his head no. "It wasn't because I was upset about Alaric. It was because I couldn't stop thinking about you." she grabbed his hand and kissed his fingertips, "The first time we kissed, every time you kissed my cheek or just touched me in general, the look in your eyes when you told me you intended on setting me ablaze…every memory like that kept playing in my head getting me all worked up. There was a reason I walked away from you when we were dancing that night."

He slid his hand from her grasp to rest between her breasts as he fell forward to hover over her with his free hand on the bed beside her shoulder. "I thought I'd made you uncomfortable."

She shook her head no. "It was because Caroline gave me a questioning look when she realized who I was dancing with and I realized that I didn't want her to have you. I realized that you, the brother of the man I was still bound to, the big, bad, original hybrid that had brought my friends so much terror, were my darkest desire." She slid her hands down his chest to hold his sides. "And giving in to that desire was the best decision I've ever made."

Klaus slipped his thumb over her bottom lip as he looked into her eyes then moved his thumb and caught her lip between his in a kiss that quickly turned heated and passionate.

* * *

Later that day Katie stood at the end of the desk in the study where Klaus sat looking through Esther's spell book. "So since I was wrong about the morning sickness being over and I missed the meeting with Sophie, what's the plan for tonight?"

"Sophie is going to do a locator spell to find Elijah. To keep her from getting caught another witch is going to do a bigger spell to mask Sophie's." he told her.

"How did you convince another witch to do magic?" she asked with an interested look.

"I haven't." he answered looking confidant. "That is what this is for." He held up a page from the book and Katie looked at it to see a daylight ring spell. "Marcel's right hand man Thierry is in love with a witch that owns a shop in The Caldron. Since said witch gave Thierry a tip about a werewolf in the quarter that led to dead night walkers, I gave him a little nudge and he ordered a rousting of The Caldron. When they do said rousting tonight while Rebekah and I are at Marcel's party, a compelled night walker of mine is going to bite Thierry's little girlfriend. If he loves her as much as he says he does, he will kill my night walker."

"And Marcel has rules about vampires killing vampires." Katie nodded. "To save Thierry his witch girlfriend will do a spell, masking Sophie's. Too bad there's probably not going to be time for you to make Sophie to unlink herself from me while the smoke screen's still up." She sighed.

"One of the many things I'm working on, Love." He told her as he wrapped his arm around her waist.

"I know and I don't mean to complain. I just wish there was more I could do than sit on my butt and do nothing." She told him then pointed to the spell on the desk. "So what is this for?"

"Insurance." He answered. "Another compelled vampire of mine is going to say they found this, a spell Marcel keeps under lock and key, in the shop of Thierry's girlfriend."

"Then Marcel will accuse Thierry of treason along with the fact that he killed another vampire and he will lose his right hand man status leaving room for you to slip into his place." Katie finished and he looked up at her with a smirk. "And there's no way I can go to the party?" she asked.

"You know I would grant you anything you wish, but no. It's too dangerous." He told her as he stood up and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"I know…" she sighed. "Go, do your thing." She told him then pecked him on the lips.

* * *

Katie was outside, sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs in the cool water. "I thought you were supposed to be staying inside." Katie jumped and looked to her left to see an almond skinned woman. She recognized her as one of the witches, but couldn't remember her name. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm one of Sophie's friends. She asked me to keep you company while everyone's out."

"Yeah I remember seeing you around." Katie told her as she stood up. "What's you're name again?"

"Sabine." She answered. "So, now that you've had time to wrap your head around it, how are you feeling about becoming a mother?"

"I…am…excited, for the most part." Katie answered. "I just wish I could go get an ultrasound done so I can see it and maybe find out what it is so I can't stop calling it, it." she said then remembered Fiona doing a trick where she put her wedding band on a string and dangled it over her stomach. "I have a weird question, can you determine the gender?"

Sabine smiled and nodded. "Come on, let's go in the house where there are fewer mosquitoes."

"I…don't have a wedding band…" Katie said realizing it was, according to Fiona, a crucial part of the trick.

"The wedding band is unnecessary it was just our way of making things make a little more sense to the humans sense wedding band is tied to both the mother and the father." Sabine laughed as they walked into the kitchen and she motioned to the island. "Hop up." Katie hopped up and lay back on the counter with her hands at her sides. Sabine took off her necklace and dangled it over Katie's stomach. After a few seconds she smiled and said, "I think it's a girl." Katie smiled. "No. Wait."

"Don't tell me I'm having twins." Katie said thinking Sabine had found a second baby that maybe she hadn't heard.

But Sabine dropped the necklace, threw her head back and started chanting. Knowing from the many times she saw Fiona have a vision that Sabine was having one now, Katie grabbed Sabine's wrist hoping to see it, but Sabine was on vervain. After a minute or so Sabine stopped and looked at Katie with wide eyes.

"You just had a vision and from the looks of it, it wasn't good." Katie pointed out. "Tell me what it was about."

"You're delivery…it won't be an easy one." Sabine warned.

"Is that all you can tell me?" Katie asked sensing something was off.

"Unfortunately, yes." Sabine answered. "My visions are sometimes hard to read."

"I'm not feeling well. I'm going to go to bed, you can see yourself out." Katie told her as she placed her hand on her stomach and started for the stairs. Sabine nodded and left.

Katie however was feeling perfectly fine and instead of going to bed grabbed her laptop and started attempting to translate what she'd heard Sabine say.

* * *

Katie was sitting on their bed with ear buds in her ears still trying to decode what seemed to be very poor Latin when Klaus walked in and pulled one of the ear buds out of her ear. "I thought you should know Elijah will be returning to us." Klaus told her.

She didn't look away from her computer. "Yeah, cool." She told him with a wave.

Klaus blinked down at her a little confused by her lack of reaction. "What on earth are you doing?"

"You speak different languages right?" she asked finally looking away from the computer to see the look he was giving her. "I had a visitor tonight. A witch named Sabine. Sophie sent her to keep me company and I asked her to do a gender test, after which she had a vision. She said it was about my delivery, that it wasn't going to be easy, but I think she was lying. And I can't translate what she was chanting during her vision."

"I don't think I've ever seen you this focused on something before." He told her as he shifted her weight on his feet.

"I don't think you've ever seen me this worried before." Katie pointed out as she stood from the bed. "It sounded bad."

"Alright, what was she chanting?" he asked.

"Hoc est infantima malom. Nos omnia perdeto el eam." She told him and after a few minutes his eyes grew big and his posture fell. "What does it mean, Klaus?"

"This baby is evil. It will destroy us all." He answered.

Katie sank down on the bed. "If Sabine opens her mouth…they are going to think our child is the equivalent of Lucifer himself." She told him with a hard voice.

He sighed, sat down beside her and grabbed the back of her neck, pulling her to him to rest her forehead on his with their eyes closed. "I will protect you and our child with my life."

"Nothing hurts her." Katie agreed and they opened their eyes meeting each other's gazes. "No matter what."

"No matter what." He agreed then wrapped his arms around her waist and moved them so that they were lying on the bed with his hand resting on her stomach. After a few minutes what she'd said sank in. "Her?"

"Crap, I was going to ask if you wanted to know before I told you that part." She told him and he pushed himself up on his arm to look down at her. "According to Sabine's gender test we're having a girl and it's the same one Fiona did when I was pregnant with Jonah." his eyes were wide and he almost looked scared. "You're getting your princess." She told him with a small smile.

A quiet, quick laugh left his lips before he pressed them to hers.

They had been making out for a few minutes when she pulled back. "Mmm, how did the party scheme go?"

"I deviated from the plan." He answered as he pulled back to look at her face.

"How did you deviate?" she asked as she slid her hands down his chest and around his waist.

"There was no way our little suicide witch wasn't gonna try and take out Marcel with her." He told her. "So I killed Thierry's girl, but unfortunately that cut Sophie's locator spell short."

"But you said Elijah was returning to us." Katie pointed out a little confused.

"By protecting Marcel I've cemented his trust. So much so that he's agreed to return Elijah to us. And…when he's told me everything I need to know about Davina we will have her for ourselves." He told her in his I'm diabolical and I know it voice. He expected her to say something along the lines of, yay Elijah's coming back or, you're not going to use a sixteen year old girl as a weapon. But she said nothing. "Care to voice your thoughts?"

"I just…" she sighed and shook her head, "Under any other circumstances I would totally be against using a child as a weapon, but if we can get her to willingly join our side…If she can help protect our baby…I'm all for it." she shrugged. "As for Elijah…It's sucked knowing he's been daggered in a coffin with a teenaged witch probably poking and prodding at him trying to figure out how to kill him."

"I feel like there was an unspoken "but" at the end of that sentence." He prompted.

"But…" she caressed his back with a sigh, "there's a reason I haven't been riding you harder about getting him back. It felt like he still has feelings for me, I know you get jealous easy and I don't want to be the cause of a Mikealson brother smack down." she immediately remembered them fighting while her humanity was off after she told Elijah she had been with Klaus. "Again. It was kind of fun the first time when I didn't care who got hurt, but now…not so much."

"I trust that you are loyal to me, but if he tries something I cannot promise that we won't come to blows again." He told her with a warning look.

"I know, and I'm not asking you to make any promises. I'm just asking you to let me handle it and if I can't get it though his thick skull that I'm yours and I'm not going to change my mind. Then if he still doesn't listen you can throw fists and break stuff." She told him with a serious face. "Deal?"

"Deal." He agreed.

* * *

After eating breakfast Katie showered and started getting dressed and after trying on a third pair of jean shorts sje slammed the dresser drawer shut. Klaus smirked, looking at the small pooch in her lower abdomen. "It's not funny." She told him as she pulled a pair of athletic shorts out of the dresser.

"You're right it's not funny, it's beautiful…You're beautiful." He told her as he watched her pull on the shorts then a hot pink racer back tank top.

"I don't feel beautiful." She complained as she walked over to where he stood at the foot of the bed with his hands tucked behind his back. "I feel bloated and heartburn is a pain in the ass."

He grabbed her hips, turned her around then pulled her back into him, sweeping her hair to the side so he could kiss her neck. "You could grow to the size of a whale and I'd still think you were the most beautiful woman on the planet." He rested his chin on her shoulder and slipped his hand over to stomach.

"Let's not test that theory." She told him as she turned her head and pecked him on his stubbly cheek. "If you're trying to feel her moving you most likely won't."

"I'm aware." He told her defensively.

"Really?" she asked not believing him. "How?" He walked over to his bedside table, pulled the top drawer open and took out a book. He tossed it to her and she caught it. "What to expect when you're expecting." She read the cover out loud then smiled a bright smile at him. "You're reading a pregnancy book."

"Yes it's actually quite informative." He told her as he walked around the bed and placed his hands on her sides.

He smiled when she threw her arms around his neck and captured his lips with hers for a happy kiss. "You're awesome."

"It's just a book, Love." He laughed at her reaction.

"I begged Ronan to buy a book on pregnancy and read it with me. We were miles from town or any kind of mid wife. I had no idea what to expect having never even been around a pregnant woman before. He told me that I didn't need it because my body and nature would take care of everything and he didn't need to know about pregnancy because the man's job was to wait outside and have a cigar when it was all over." She explained. "It's not just a book."

"I fully intend on being at your side, holding your hand or whatever you need me to do when the time comes." He told her then pecked her on the lips. "I've read it, cover to cover. The book is yours and I'll get you more if you want."

She smiled, pecked him on the lips, "You're awesome." Then sat down on the bed. "I have my plans for the day. What are yours?"

"The annual Dauphine Street music festival is tonight." He told her.

"Seems like this place is no different than Mystic Falls." She pointed out. "Parties and festivals are hot spots for supernatural shenanigans. If it wasn't for that I would be begging you to let me come with you. So instead I'll say maybe next year."

"Next year?" he asked noticing the implication.

"I have a feeling if I had the chance I'd really like this city." She told him with a shrug. "And it's your favorite place and your home. Am I thinking too far ahead when I say I want it to be _our_ home?"

"What about Mystic Falls?" he asked with an interested tilt of his head.

"Graduation was the last thing that place had to offer me. Now my friends are going to college without me and it just doesn't feel like I belong with them anymore. So I guess you could say that I'm in the market for a new home."

He walked over to her with admiration in his eyes. "I can't wait to officially show you your new home. But for now I have to go."

"Okay, if you gotta." She sighed pretending to pout he just smirked and pecked her on the lips before he left.

* * *

Katie was sitting on the couch reading the book when someone rang the doorbell and Rebekah answered it. "You have a visitor." Rebekah announced as she walked into the room.

Katie looked up to see Agnes, a witch elder, walk in and sit down in the arm chair across from her. "What can I do for you?" Katie asked not pleased that a witch was in the house. She was really growing to hate the French Quarter witches as a whole.

"I was just coming to check up on you." she told her with a pleasant smile.

"I'm fine." Katie answered. "The baby's fine."

"You know you're overdue for a check up, right?" Agnes asked.

"I'm aware, but going to the doctor isn't exactly an option right now is it?" Katie asked.

"A lot of women would kill to have a child. It strikes me as odd that you're not taking better care of yours." Rebekah spoke up from where she sat at a table in the room looking for the attic she saw Elijah in on satellite images.

"I know a doctor out in the bayou off the beaten path. Now, I took the liberty of making an appointment for you…tonight after hours, just us. Marcel's men will never get word of it." Agnes told her and Katie snapped the book shut.

"Well, thanks, but you shouldn't have." Katie told her as she stood up and tossed the book onto the couch then headed to the front door with Agnes. "Sorry you wasted your time." Katie pulled the door open and motioned Agnes outside. "Goodbye." Agnes walked out and Katie shut the door.

"Well that was rude of you." Rebekah commented.

"I don't trust French Quarter witches." Katie told her as she walked back over to the couch and picked up the book. "And honestly I'm surprised you'd think I'd go anywhere alone with one of them."

"I see my brother's paranoia has rubbed off on you." she sighed not looking away from the computer screen.

"It's not paranoia if I have legitimate reasons to not trust someone." Katie pointed out. "If I go to that doctor I'll go with Klaus, not some witch I don't even know."

A few seconds later Klaus walked in and saw Rebekah on the computer just as she'd been when he left this morning. "Please sister, tell me you're not still at it with the internet search." He said as he walked into the room to the table that sat between the two armchairs across from the couch that Katie was sitting on and poured himself a drink from the decanter that was always on the table and always full. "How does one begin anyway, just type in 'anonymous attic'?" he smirked at Katie who glanced up from her reading at him.

"Someone has to find Elijah. Even if I have to search every bloody attic in New Orleans." Rebekah replied not looking away from the computer.

"Like looking for a needle in a rather large pile of needles." Klaus commented as he turned to look at Rebekah.

"I remember details about the attic Marcel took me to. There were shutters on the windows behind Elijah's coffin." Rebekah replied.

"Well that should narrow it down immensely." Klaus walked over to Katie and sat down next to her. "Myself, I prefer actual strategy as opposed to mind-numbing labor." He grabbed Katie's legs and pulled them to drape over his lap and she leaned to the side and the back of the couch, not taking her eyes off the book in her lap as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Marcel's delay in returning our brother makes me suspect he's no longer in charge of the situation. If Davina's loyalty to Marcel is strained perhaps the young witch will be open to discussing a new alliance."

Katie took her eyes off the book now interested in the conversation. "As usual, your power grabs are more important than rescuing your brother." Rebekah said.

Katie frowned and looked between the brother and sister. "You know, it's not impossible to do both. Davina has Elijah. If we get her we get him. They are kind of a packaged deal at this point." She told Rebekah then looked at Klaus. "Am I wrong?"

"As per the usual you are spot on." Klaus told her with an appreciative look in his eyes. Neither of them had told Rebekah about Sabine's vision. So she didn't know why it was so important to both of them that they get Davina on their side. "The little witch is going to be at the festival tonight and I'm going to make a move." He told Katie more than Rebekah. Katie pecked him on the cheek then returned her eyes to her book.

* * *

Katie was alone in the house, cooking supper when she thought she heard something outside. Since Sabine's visit she'd caught herself going on high alert whenever she was in the house by herself. So she pressed pause on her phone that was filling the kitchen with music. When she heard a twig snap outside she whooshed through the front door and around the house to the sound. A guy was sneaking toward the back door and she recognized him as the same witch that had tried to stop her from leaving the tomb. She got still and quiet and listened. She counted seven distinctly different sets of footsteps including the guy she had eyes on that was about to open the back door.

They created a semi circle around the back of the house. The witches further back were most likely keeping an eye on the one breaking into the house as they slowly closed in on the house. So she decided to leave him be for now. Instead she whooshed to the witch furthest away from the house, disarmed him as quietly as she could then slammed him face first into the ground and placed her foot on his back. She held his arms straight out behind his back, her hands holding tight around his wrists. "Call for help and die." She practically growled at him. "What do you people want?" he didn't answer. So Katie pulled back on his arms making him groan in pain. "Answer the question or I will rip your arms from your scrawny little torso."

"We were sent to kill you." he answered with a pant.

"By who?" she asked.

"Agnes." He grunted. "She said that the child you're carrying will be the death of all witches."

"Damn it Sabine." Katie sighed. "Looks like it's time to send the witches a message." With a whoosh she broke the guy's neck. Over the course of the next minute five more witches necks were broken. The last warlock standing was the one in the house. So she whooshed to the back door and listened. She heard him in the parlor and whooshed inside completely catching him off guard when she grabbed him from behind, sank her teeth into his neck and drank until his heart stopped then let him fall to the floor. He wasn't even on vervain.

With all of the witches dead Katie went to the kitchen, took her phone off the speaker dock and called Klaus. "I hate to sound rude, but I'm in the middle of something, Sweetheart." Klaus said when he answered the phone.

"Okay, I just have one quick question." She told him as she walked into the parlor and looked down at the bloody circle on the carpet. "What should I do with the lifeless bodies of seven warlocks?"

"Are you okay?" he asked not answering her question, but it was obvious that she now had his full attention.

"Perfectly." She answered in a chipper voice.

"What happened?" he asked his voice now low and hard.

"Agnes sent some witches to their deaths thinking they could kill me." she answered looking at the blood puddle that kept getting bigger. "Also, how do I get blood out of a rug? The dead guy in our living room is bleeding everywhere."

"Where is Rebekah?" he asked once again not answering her question.

"What the bloody hell happened here?" Rebekah asked as she walked into the parlor.

"She just got back from where ever it is she's been." Katie answered.

"I will be there as soon as I can." He told her then hung up.

Katie put the phone down and looked at Rebekah. "He tried to kill me." Katie said with a shrug as she leaned down and picked up the stake that had fallen out of the guy's hand. "Did Agnes seriously think simple witches who aren't allowed to do the brain pain spell could ambush me?"

"You kind of make it easy to forget that you're a vampire." Rebekah answered then stepped over the guy and grabbed his ankles. "Are you going to help me get him out of here or what?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry." Katie said with a shake of her head and grabbed the guy's shoulders then helped Rebekah move the guy outside.

* * *

"You took on seven witches…alone?" Klaus asked as he stalked into the house.

"Yep." Katie answered simply from where she sat on the floor, scrubbing at the blood on the rug.

"You should have called me and let me handle it." he told her with a hard face.

"I should have called you and let them close in on me while I waited for you?" she asked as she tossed the scrub brush into the bucket of soapy water and stood up.

"There are several places in this house you could have hidden." he told her with a point to the room he had the coffins stored in.

"You of all people know I do not hide and I do not back down." she told him with her head held high as she glared at him. It stuck her that she'd had a fight like this before, with Damon, and she sighed and wiped the glare from her face. "I know I have a habit of putting myself in harms way and I know I'm slowly getting weaker. That's why I bite myself every once in a while to see if I still heal and I whoosh just to see if I still have speed." She cupped his face in her hands. "You know that if I thought for even a second that taking them on would put the baby in danger I wouldn't have done it, right?"

"Your fight is one of the many things I like about you." he told her as he took one of her hands off his face and kissed the under side of her wrist. "I know you'd never put our baby in harms way." He put his hand on her shoulder then kissed her. "Now that I know you are, in fact, perfectly okay there is one more thing I need to tend to in the quarter before the night is over. I will not be long."

"You're not going to go on a witch hunt are you?" she asked with a smirk.

"No, but when I do get my hands on Sophie Deveraux she is-"

"It wasn't Sophie. It was Agnes." Katie interrupted him.

"Agnes, Sophie, it's all the same to me. I'll slaughter the lot of them." He told her with a sneer.

"Not if Elijah gets there first." Rebekah said as she walked into the room and sat down on the couch.

"Come again?" Katie asked with a look at Rebekah.

"Have you found him?" Klaus asked tucking his hands behind his back.

"He's been in touch, and he has a plan." Rebekah answered then looked at Katie. "All he asks is that we take care of you."

Klaus stalked over to glare down at Rebekah. "I asked you to stay with her, not go on a wild goose chase to find Elijah."

"I believe she has proven that she doesn't need a babysitter." Rebekah argued.

Klaus opened her mouth to say something, but Katie touched his arm keeping a fight from happening. "I'll be back." Klaus told Katie then pecked her on the lips and walked away.

With him gone Katie returned to the kitchen and started cleaning up the meal that was no longer worth finishing. Rebekah walked in and leaned on the island. "You are aware that Elijah is still in love with you, right?" she asked.

Katie grabbed a bowl out of the cabinet. "I'm aware." she grabbed a bag of granola cereal out of another cabinet.

"And you don't care?" Rebekah asked.

Katie grabbed a gallon of milk out of the icebox and set it on the counter. "Of course I care, Rebekah, but my feelings for him are not what they used to be."

"Because you're in love with Klaus?" she asked as she watched Katie pour cereal into the bowl.

"Are you always this nosey or are you just tying to find a way to get Elijah and I back together?" she asked avoiding the question.

"Just making an attempt at girl talk." Rebekah answered innocently.

"If you want girl talk then we can talk about hair products, fashion or the incredibly hot Hemsworth brothers." Katie pointed out as she added milk to the bowl.

"You have a thing for guys with accents, don't you?" Rebekah asked.

"Yep." Katie answered then took a bite of cereal.

"So you're not in love with Klaus?" Rebekah asked.

Katie sighed and let her head fall forward. "I'm not talking about this with you." she answered then grabbed her bowl and went to her and Klaus's room.

She was sitting at a table in their room, eating her cereal and writing in her journal when her phone started ringing and she pulled it out of her pocket to see Klaus's name on the screen. She pressed talk and before she could say hello a woman's voice hit her ears. "Wait. That's right I told you what happened. I never tell anybody, but I told you." Katie frowned and hit the speaker phone button. "And you said something about Sean standing alone against his demons. When he killed those men I thought he must be mentally ill, but… What if it was demons? What if a vampire compelled him?"

"And if so, would you devote yourself to finding the guilty party? Would you sacrifice everything to find out the truth? To what end?" She heard Klaus ask, both of their voices sounded far away from the phone. She could only guess that he pocket dialed her.

"To what end? This is the entire reason I am in New Orleans!" the woman said with a raised voice.

Katie was about to hang up, knowing she shouldn't be listening in on Klaus's conversations, but the name that came out of his mouth stopped her. "Cami, whatever lies on the other end of this mystery will only offer you pain. Nothing will bring your brother back. Your only hope for peace is to forget this and move on." He'd left her to go to Cami?

"No, don't compel me to forget this." Cami argued.

"And if I allow you to remember…your knowledge will eat away at you. Your quest for truth will only put you in danger." Klaus told her.

"You don't care about me! You just want me to forget this so I can be focused on Marcel. So I'll be a good little spy for you!" Cami yelled at him. Katie placed her fingers tips on her lips, debating on hanging up. She shouldn't be listening to this, but she couldn't help herself.

"I need your loyalty, yes, and though that may appear selfish to you the scope of my plan goes far beyond myself. Power aside I am trying to honor my brother and the woman I love." Klaus told her with an emotional voice. Katie's heart stopped at Klaus's confession.

"But what about my brother? My _twin_ brother. We were bonded our whole lives and I know…_I know_ he didn't just snap. And I need to know who did this and I need to make this right." Cami pleaded with him. "No, don't take this away from me!"

"You will do nothing. You're brother was ill. He killed those people and himself and it was a tragedy. All you can do is move on." Katie assumed he was compelling Cami. "Know that your brother is at peace and that you needn't worry. I will find out what happened and when I do, I will make sure whoever harmed your brother will suffer. And as for you, tonight, you will sleep and you will dream of a world far better than this one. A world where there is no evil, no demons, and all people desire only to be good." When she heard the sound of wind against the microphone of the phone she pressed the end button.

She was putting her empty bowl in the dishwasher when she heard Klaus whoosh up behind her then grab her hips, spin her around and kiss her. She kissed him back for a few seconds then turned away and closed the dishwasher. "You…are the perfect ending to a long day." He whispered into her ear as his hands slipped down her sides and kissed her neck.

"I'm far from perfect." She told him as she turned in his arms. "I'm nosey." He gave her a curious look. "You were with Cami earlier and I know that because you pocket dialed me…and I listened."

He sighed and tilted his head to the side. "How much did you hear?"

"I came in on Cami wondering if her brother was compelled." She answered. "I shouldn't have listened and I'm sorry."

"No worries, love." He told her knowing that if she heard the whole conversation she heard him say that he loves her. She had no reason to be jealous and it didn't look like she was mad, just guilty.

"You're not mad at me?" she asked quietly.

"Of course not." He told her as he placed his hands on her hips. "Something else I like about you…" he picked her up and sat her on the kitchen counter, "your curiosity."

"Yeah, well, curiosity killed the cat." She sighed.

"Thankfully cats have nine lives." He replied making her roll her eyes. "Do you have any questions regarding what you heard?"

"What's the whole story? All I could gather from what I heard is that Cami's twin brother, Sean, killed people and it may or may not have been because a vampire compelled him to do so." She told him as she wrapped her legs around him.

"Her brother was a seminary student at Saint Ann's church in the quarter." He started. "He went insane and killed nine of his fellow seminary students then himself. According to Cami, he had no reason to do so. He showed no signs or symptoms that one usually does before a psychotic break. She feared that his demons would become her own and was suffering from insomnia and nightmares."

"So you compelled her to rest easy and stop worrying about her brother because if she didn't it would lead her right into the mess that is the supernatural community." She thought out loud putting the pieces together. "You helped her because you care about her."

"So are you jealous?" he asked with a smirk.

"That you told Cami that you are trying to honor your brother and the woman that you love?" she asked with a small smile. "Nope, I'm good." She wrapped her arms around his neck and tightened her legs around him.

"So you're acknowledging that I love you." he observed.

"You're doing everything in your power to protect me and your unborn child." She pointed out as she looked him in the eyes. "And you called me your everything. I'd have to be blind to not see it. I just…" she bit her lips closed and dropped her eyes from his with a shake of her head.

"You're not ready to say it back." he finished for her as he slid his hands up from her hips to hold her sides.

"I should be, all things considered, but…no, I'm not." She admitted with a shake of her head and a shrug. She felt like something was standing in the way of her fully giving in to Klaus, like something was blocking those words from leaving her lips.

"I move at a faster pace than you when it comes to us and that is perfectly fine." He assured her seeing how much she was struggling with the idea of love even after everything they had been through. It was going to take time for her to let herself love again. "I don't want you to say it unless you mean it."

"And that…Big Bad Wolf, is one of the many, _many_ things I like about you." she moved her arms from around his neck to rest her hands on the sides of it. "You're patient with me even though patience isn't your strong suit." He placed his hand on her cheek and opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind and closed it. She knew he wanted to say it, but if he did she would feel pressured to say it back and neither of them wanted that. So instead, he pressed his lips to hers, both of them pouring themselves into it resulting in him whooshing then upstairs to their room.


	42. Chapter 42

**Phoenix Rising**

**Ch. 42**

"I have a few things I think belong to you." Katie told Sophie as she led her to the back yard and motioned to the seven bodies wrapped in white sheets, only their faces could be seen.

"What's this?" Sophie asked with wide eyes, shaken by the sight of the dead warlocks.

"A message." Katie answered simply tucking her hands into the pockets of her sun dress. Sophie looked at her. "To you, Agnes, Sabine and whoever else need to hear it." Klaus and Rebekah watched them from the open patio doors of the kitchen. "I put them down gently, but if more of your people come after my baby and me again…I will make sure their death is slow and painful."

"I swear…I had nothing to do with this." Sophie assured her as they headed back into the house. "You and I are linked, remember? You die, I die." When they passed through the patio doors Klaus and Rebekah followed them into the parlor.

"Then who were they?" Rebekah asked.

"They're a faction of extremists." Sophie answered as she sat down in one of the arm chairs and Katie and Klaus sat down on the sofa. Rebekah stood behind them. "Sabine stupidly told them about some vision she had about the baby."

"What kind of vision?" Rebekah asked while Katie and Klaus shared a look.

"She has them all the time. They're totally open for interpretation." Sophie answered. "I'm guessing she's wrong on this one."

"Well, how, may I ask, was this particular vision interpreted?" Klaus asked as he leaned forward putting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. He knew how he and Katie interpreted what Sabine had said, he was just interested to see what Sabine had told the witches.

Sophie reluctantly said, "Pretty much that your baby would bring death to all witches."

"Ah, well, I grow fonder of our child by the second." Klaus said with a smirk over at Katie who smirked back and shook her head at him. Katie had taken the vision to mean the baby would bring death to everyone, like apocalyptic stuff, but if it was just the witches her baby would be the death of she couldn't make herself care much any more.

"Sophie, look. I promised Elijah that I would protect the Mikaelson miracle baby whilst he tries to win your witch Davina's loyalty." Rebekah told her as she sat down in the other arm chair and looked at Sophie. "Why don't you tell me just how extreme this faction is?"

"Elijah's talking to Davina?" Sophie asked.

"Yeah, as we speak, I imagine." Rebekah answered.

"I'm guessing she'll have plenty to say about that crowd." Sophie told her.

"Do tell." Klaus told her as he leaned back and draped his arm over Katie's shoulders.

"I wasn't always an advocate for the witches. My sister was devoted like our parents and our upbringing was very strict, which drove me nuts." Sophie started explaining. "The minute I turned twenty one, I left the quarter to travel…and play. But I wanted to be a chef so eight months ago I came back to Rousseau's and my sister told me that the elders were moving forward with the harvest."

"What the bloody hell is the harvest?" Rebekah asked.

"It's a ritual our coven does every 3 centuries so that the bond to our ancestral magic is restored." Sophie answered. "We appease our ancestors and they keep our ancestral magic flowing."

"Why haven't I heard of this?" Klaus asked.

"Because the harvest always seemed like a myth; A story passed down through the generations. Like Noah's ark or the Buddha walking on water. The kind that some people take literally and some people don't." Sophie explained. "They had the girls in our community prepping for months. Four would be chosen for the harvest. They said that it was an honor, that they were special. I thought it was a myth."

"Was it?" Rebekah asked.

Before she got the chance to answer Klaus's phone started ringing. "Marcel, a bit early in the day for you isn't it?" considering she had already listened in on one of his conversations Katie decided to keep her ears to herself for once. "Rather you than me. All that responsibility seems like such a bore." Katie watched Klaus stand up from the couch. "Eh, why not? I haven't been to the bayou in ages. I'm on my way." Klaus hung up the phone and stuck it in his pocket.

"So you're leaving?" Katie asked with a motion to Sophie who was in the middle of a story.

"If I don't go he's going to wonder what's occupying my time." He told her. "We can't afford for anything to make him curious enough to lead him here to you."

Katie took in an aggravated breath then let it out. "I know."

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Stay put, and save the rest of your story until I return." Klaus said with a point at Sophie then left.

"I didn't sleep well last night, if he's not back by the time I wake up you can finish telling us your story."

"Are you serious?" Rebekah asked in disbelief. "Klaus told her to wait."

"I don't really give a crap what Klaus said at the moment." Katie snapped then left Rebekah and Sophie downstairs and went to sleep, hoping that she'd wake up in a better mood.

A few hours later Katie came downstairs, Sophie opened her mouth to start talking but Katie held her hand up. "Coffee first harvest ritual story after." She grumbled, cranky from her stiff back. After making a strong cup she walked back into the parlor and motioned for Sophie to start talking.

"Isn't caffeine bad for the baby?" Rebekah asked as she sat down in the chair next to Sophie.

"One cup a day won't hurt, besides I'm still partially vampire." She told Rebekah then gave Sophie a look that asked her to start talking.

She looked at Rebekah. "My niece, Monique, was chosen along with Davina. The elders told them that they were going to nick their palm with a sacred dagger and put them in a state of peaceful limbo and then at the reaping they would awaken and be reborn more powerful. They failed to tell the girls that they had to die to enter the limbo state." Katie frowned not liking what she was hearing. "I didn't want Monique to die so I went to the pastor, Father Kieran. He's part of the faction, represents the humans. I knew he wouldn't like that children were going to be sacrificed. So I asked him to find a way to stop them." Katie propped her elbow up on the arm of the couch and tucked her fist under her chin listening intently. "He tried to talk to the witches, but it didn't work. Agnes cursed his nephew with a magical object, made him start going crazy so that Father K. would be too worried about him to care about the witches."

"Back to the harvest thingy." Rebekah said impatiently.

"I tried to stop the ritual, but I was too late. Those guys in your back yard held me back while I watched the elder Bastianna slit those girl's throats."

"So how did Davina survive?" Katie asked curiously.

"Marcel stepped in. His men killed Bastianna." she answered. "I'm guessing Father Kieran told him knowing that he didn't want the witches to have more power. He took Davina and ran. I'm sure he was just trying to help her, but every girl that died passed her power on to the next and when Davina didn't die for it to flow back into the earth she kept all of it. So now Marcel's using that to his advantage."

"So the ritual wasn't just a myth." Rebekah said with wide eyes.

"It was real and because of me, the harvest is incomplete and if it isn't completed and the reaping performed…the witches will lose their power for good and my niece will stay dead."

* * *

Katie was reading a baby book when Sophie sighed for the one millionth time in the past few hours. "Problem?" Katie asked not looking up from her book.

"It's getting dark. If I don't consecrate those remains before sundown we lose the link to their magic." Sophie told her.

"Then by all means, take them and go." Katie told her with a motion to the back yard.

"Did Klaus say she could take them?" Rebekah asked with a frown.

"Do I take orders from Klaus?" Katie asked back with a look up from the book. "I killed them so I say what happens to the remains and I say she can take them and put their souls to rest. Their souls shouldn't suffer just because an _elder _sent them to their death."

"You didn't have to kill them you know." Sophie spoke up with a hard look.

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, either way they are dead now and in need of consecration. So have at it." Katie jerked her head to the back yard and Sophie walked away.

After Sophie loaded the bodies into the back of her car Katie found Rebekah having a drink. "You've been in a mood all day." Rebekah pointed out and Katie just looked down at the floor. "Trouble in paradise?" she asked with a smirk.

"Kinda, sorta, not really." Katie answered confusingly.

"What has my brother done now?" she asked then poured another drink.

"He hasn't done anything. I'm not mad at him I just…" she shook her head with a frown. "I'm tired of seeing him have to drop everything and jump the second Marcel tells him to feel froggy." She explained. "And I'm tired of feeling like our lives are being run by everyone but us."

"Welcome to my life." Rebekah told her then downed her drink just as Klaus walked in the front door. "Nik, finally what-" she was cut off when Elijah walked through the door and Katie turned from the table they were standing at. Her eyes landed on Elijah who gave Rebekah a smile before she ran over and hugged him. He gave Katie a smile over Rebekah's shoulder. She gave him a half smile then turned her eyes to Klaus who seemed to be watching her extra close. "Elijah, you're safe." Rebekah pulled back and asked, "Now that you're home is your first plan to kill Niklaus?"

Katie walked past Elijah to stand next to Klaus who wrapped his arm around her waist. "I'd very much like to keep the father of my daughter alive."

"Daughter?" Elijah asked turning to look at her and Klaus. Katie hummed and nodded as Klaus pulled her to stand in front of him and wrapped his arms around her waist resting his hands on her stomach.

* * *

The three of them sat at the table in the small library in the house. "Everything that brought us here to New Orleans was a lie. This story that Sophie Deveraux fabricated, this struggle for control of the French quarter. This war between vampires and witches, it wasn't over territory at all. This was over Davina." Elijah told them from where he stood on the opposite side of the table. "Eight months ago Sophie Deveraux and her sister Jane-Anne lost everything. Now four months after that a young pregnant girl wanders into their restaurant. Suddenly all hope is renewed. Jane-Anna sacrificed her life so that her sister could use you to find Davina. If Sophie Deveraux is successful in capturing Davina, she can return Jane-Anne's daughter back to life. We thought we'd come here to wage a war for power." Elijah folded his arms over the high backs of one of the chairs. "This is about family. In order to return her niece to life Sophie Deveraux will fight to the death. That makes her more dangerous than anyone."

"So we're all on the same page now?" Katie asked considering he hadn't said anything she didn't already know. Also his incessant need to say Sophie's last name every time he said her fist one, like they wouldn't know who he was talking about if he simply called her Sophie, was getting on her nerves.

"No I'd still like to know what I've missed in my absence." He said with a look between the three people.

Katie looked back and forth between Klaus and Rebekah. "Okay I guess I'll go first." She sighed and sat up. "We found out I'm slowly turning human. A witch had a vision about the baby being the end of the witches. Because of that the witch bitch Agnes to send a group of warlocks to kill me resulting in their deaths."

"You're slowly turning human?" he asked with a confused face.

"Yep, apparently nature has to keep a balance. I can get hot or cold, I need human food and I'm feeling all the usual and unpleasant pregnancy symptoms like acid reflux, fatigue, extreme moodiness and annoying food cravings." She answered with a sarcastic smile. "With that being said I'm starving. So I'll let you three do your dysfunctional family thing."

"Speaking of moodiness she's been in a bad one all day." She heard Rebekah say as she walked out of the room. "Perhaps one of you can do something about it."

* * *

She was eating a healthy version of a taco salad when Klaus found her sitting at the bar in the kitchen. "Tonight was supposed to be our dinner night." He pointed out apologetically as he sat down in the stool next to her.

"It's fine. We'll do it another night." She told him then took a drink of the blood in her cup.

"Why didn't you tell me you've been having food cravings?" he asked as he stole a halved cherry tomato out of her bowl.

"Because I knew if I did you would totally be the type to run back and forth to the store anytime I even so much as hinted that I wanted something." She told him with a small smile as she looked across her shoulder at him.

"Is that a bad thing?" he asked still a little confused as to why she hadn't told him.

"No, but you spoil me enough already and if you did feel the need to get me everything I've been craving I would be the size of a house by now because it's all been sweets, including chocolate." She told him then took another bite of her salad.

"That just mean's our daughter is going to be sweet." He told her with a cheesy smile that made her laugh quietly.

"Keep can telling yourself that, but if she takes after either of us she's going to have an attitude that will test our patience like to other." she told him with a smirk. Things fell comfortably quiet between them for a few minutes before she asked, "Is Cami related to Father Kieran?"

"She's his niece." He answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I think I know why Sean murdered those people." She answered and he gave her a curious tilt of his head. "Sophie mentioned earlier that one of the elders cursed Father Kieran's nephew and made him go insane." She answered.

"Did she say which elder?" he asked looking pissed.

"Agnes." Katie answered then took the last bite of her salad. "I've been thinking." She started and hi face changed from angry to interested. "Can I meet Cami?"

"Why do you want to meet her?" he asked with a curious tilt of his head.

"Several reasons." She told him as she turned to face him with her arm rested on the bar beside her. "You care about her and you don't care about every day run of the mill people. I care about what you care about, but the main reason is I need someone to talk to."

"You can talk to me." he pointed out looking a little hurt.

"No I can't." she told him with a small smile. "Because you see there's this thing that girls like to do called gossip. Guys just don't do it right." She shrugged. "I'm cutting myself off from my friends for obvious reasons, I could use a new one."

"What about Rebekah?" he asked with a point upstairs.

"Yeah, Rebekah's version of gossip is, 'You know Elijah's still in love with you right?' Yeah, not very fun conversation." She told him with a flick of her brows.

Klaus took a deep breath thinking about it. "You know we will have to compel her to forget about you right?" he asked and Katie nodded. "Then I will send her your way sometime." He told her with a nod.

"Thank you, Big Bad Wolf." She smiled at the thought of having someone who wasn't a Mikaelson to talk to. She was putting her cup and bowl in the dishwasher when he whooshed up behind her, grabbed her hips and pulled her back against him. "I was wondering how long you could go without touching me." she laughed then sighed when he started kissing her neck. When a wave of playfulness rushed over her she turned in his arms. "I'll make you a bet."

"Uh oh." He said with a playful smirk.

"I bet…we can't go an hour in our bedroom without you touching me." she told him as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Just an hour huh?" he asked looking around in thought. "Okay, when do we start?"

"Now." she answered then whooshed toward their bedroom, but stopped at the top of the stairs when she started feeling light headed and out of breath. Klaus stopped at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her. "Klaus…"

"Whoa." He whooshed up the stairs to her and caught her before she fell down them. "Easy, Sweetheart, I've got you."

"What happened?" Elijah asked when Klaus walked by his room on the way to theirs and he saw him carrying a passed out Katie.

"She sped up the stairs and fainted." He answered stiffly as he walked into their room and laid her on the bed and sat down next to her.

"And how far along is she in her pregnancy?" Elijah asked with a worried look down at her.

"Twenty one weeks give or take." Klaus answered.

"Five months and she has already lost her stamina." He observed out loud.

"I cannot loose her, Elijah." He told his brother with a look over his shoulder. "Either of them."

"Hey." Katie spoke up feeling like she'd had the energy sucked out of her, and both of the brothers looked at her. "You're not going to loose us." she reached up and slid her hand down his cotton shirt covered arm then grabbed his hand. "So I can't whoosh anymore, we knew this would happen sooner or later." She started pushing herself up in the bed and Klaus helped her. "I would have preferred later rather than sooner, but beggars can't be choosers I guess." Both of them just stared at her. "I'm fine other than feeling completely drained. So will you both stop looking at me like I'm some kind of failed science experiment?" she asked and they both finally tore their eyes off of her. "You." she pointed at Elijah. "You've been desiccating in a coffin for I don't even know how long at this point, go have a snack and get some rest or…whatever." She told him with a wave of her hand to the door. He smirked at her attempt at bossiness and left the room. "All those years of Caroline bossing me around…I should've taken notes."

He didn't smirk back at her and she gave him a look that asked him to talk to her. "I had been hoping that Sophie was wrong."

"Yeah, well she wasn't." she sighed as she placed her hand on his cheek, feeling the warmth of it. "It just means that we're both going to have to treat me like I'm human now."

"_Are_ you human now?" he asked and she let the blood flow to her eyes to answer his question then pushed it back. She bit her wrist, watched it heal then took a flashlight out of the top drawer of her bedside table, took off her daylight ring and set it on the bed. "Is that a uv light?" he asked curiously and she hummed a positive answer as she shined it on her forearm making her skin sizzle before she clicked off the light.

She picked up her ring and put it back on her finger. "So it seems like all I've lost is my endurance and strength. I could deal with feeling hot and cold and getting hungry. I actually missed those things. However," she spun around, put her feet on the floor and tried to stand up, but she failed. Klaus caught her and helped her sit back down on the bed, "I wasn't looking forward to feeling weak and useless."

"What do you need?" he asked. "And you'll never be useless."

"Pajamas and a blood bag please." She answered. He got up and grabbed a satin night gown since it would take less energy to put on, then headed downstairs to the kitchen. When he came back she had managed to change into the gown and had her legs covered up with the blanket. He handed her the glass full of blood then changed into a pair a pajama pants and sat down on his side of the bed.

She had drunk half the glass before she handed it to Klaus. "You don't want it?"

"I thought it would help me regain some energy, but its not." She answered and he took the glass, drank it then sat it on his bedside table. He bit his wrist and held it out to her. "Klaus." She sighed tiredly.

"Drink, love." He told her as the bite healed and she looked across her shoulder at him. He gave her puppy dog eyes, "Please." She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but grabbed his arm and bit his wrist. After a few seconds she pulled back, licked the bite mark clean then let it go. "Better?" he asked, wondering if his blood was enough to help her.

"Better." She told him with a small, fleeting smile and heavy eyelids. Seeing that even though she was feeling better she was still sleepy he pulled her into him and moved them down in the bed so that they were lying on their sides with their legs intertwined. Her head rested on his shoulder and her hands were pressed into his chest. His hand rested on the curve of her waist. He thought she was asleep as he looked at her thinking about how much he loved her and how his world would stop if he lost her and the baby. "Klaus?" she whispered sleepily.

"Yes, Sweetheart?" he whispered back.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him. That she was no longer afraid of loving him, but after seeing the look on his face right before she passed out she had a new reason for not saying those three little words. He already confessed to loving her, not that he needed to confess it for her to know that he did. It was in his eyes every time he looked at her, but if she said it back it would only hurt him that much more if she died and she couldn't do that to him. "Never mind." He didn't push her to say what she wanted to say and soon her soft snores filled the room.

* * *

Klaus woke up and found Katie still tucked into his chest sound sleep, her small perfect lips slightly parted and her hands tucked under her chin. When he made the slightest move, about to slip out of bed her arm shot out and wrapped around his waist. He smiled realizing that she was still asleep. He grabbed her hand and eased it off of him causing a groan of complaint to leave her lips as he set it on the bed and slipped from between the sheets. "Klaus?" she asked in her sleep.

He brushed her hair out of her face and shushed her. "I'm not going far, Sweetheart. Go back to sleep." The kiss he placed on her temple caused her to relax back into deep sleep.

* * *

Katie sat up in bed and groaned when her head started pounding. So she threw on a robe, remembering Klaus leaving earlier that morning, and headed down stairs. She found him, Elijah and Rebekah in the parlor. Elijah and Klaus were sitting and reading while a woman lay dead on the table between then, bleeding onto the rug.

"And what's this business?" Rebekah asked from where she stood behind the couch that Klaus sat on. Katie walked into the room and stood behind him and next to Rebekah.

"This is a peace offering." Elijah answered looking up at Rebekah then noticed Katie.

"I presumed after so much time desiccating in a coffin, that my big brother might be a bit peckish." Klaus replied then looked backwards at Katie then shifted to sit with his back in the corner of the couch and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"So I explained to my little brother that forgiveness cannot be bought. I'd simply prefer to see a change in behavior that indicates contrition and personal growth, not this…nonsense." Elijah motioned to the woman with his finger.

"Well, I couldn't very well let her go to waste, could I?" Klaus asked with a smirk that made Elijah cut his eyes up at him.

"Well, I suppose I'll fetch the rubbish bin because she's staining a 200 year old carpet." Rebekah complained then stalked off to the kitchen.

Klaus looked back at Katie. "How are you feeling?"

"My head is pounding and I have a feeling a blood bag isn't going to fix it." she answered as she tucked her messy auburn waves behind her ear. He pulled back his sleeve and offered her his arm with a smirk. She pulled his sleeve down with a smirk. "I appreciate the offer, but there are these oval white pills called Tylenol." She told him with a smirk. "Do you know if we have any?"

"Top shelf of the medicine cabinet in our bathroom." He answered looking disappointed that she didn't want to feed on him. "The book mentioned it was the only over the counter pain medication you could take."

"Thank you." she said as she grabbed his hand and kissed the backs of his fingers not feeling like bending over to kiss his lips then headed back upstairs.

She was in the kitchen getting the milk out of the fridge when she heard Elijah say, "Good morning."

"Morning." She replied seeing him leaning on the doorframe as she set the milk on the counter then walked over to the cabinet and grabbed a bag of granola cereal.

"I take it you and Rebekah are still on good terms?" he asked just to strike up a conversation.

"We've been on better before." Katie answered vaguely then looked up to see him give her a curious look. She took a deep breath and looked down at her bowl in thought. "She believes I'm with the wrong brother. Pretty sure she's mad at me for choosing Klaus." she didn't look up from her cereal bowl. "They both think you still have feelings for me and you yourself have said that you tried to move on and it didn't work." She looked up at him to see him looking at her through narrowed eyes. "On the flip side you have acknowledged that he loves me. I'm getting contradictory information from you and it's making a knot in my brain that I need straightened out."

"I still have feelings for you." he answered and she took a deep breath as her growling stomach reminded her to eat. So she grabbed her bowl of cereal and moved to sit at the dining table. He followed and sat down across from her. After a few minutes she looked up at him and he gave her a squint of his eyes, silently asking her to say something.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and started playing with her cereal with her spoon. "I told you in Mystic Falls that we needed to move on." She started then looked down at her cereal. "I'm sorry that you couldn't, but I did. I care about him more than I thought I was capable of caring about someone so soon after…" she trailed off.

"After I broke you." he finished for her and she nodded, still pushing her cereal around in her bowl. "Are you still happy with him?" he asked.

She looked up and let a small smile play at the corners of her lips. "Very much so."

"I give you my word. I will not stand in the way of your happiness." He told her with a tone that told her this would be the end of their conversation. "You are not the kind of woman a man can simply…gets over. It will take time." He told her with a small smirk then took in a deep breath and sat up, adjusting the placemat in front of him. "Now about the murderous witches."

"I would call me the murderous one, but what about them?" Katie asked with a smirk then took a bite of cereal.

"You are still linked to Sophie Deveraux are you not?" he asked and she nodded. "I think I have a solution to that little problem."

"I am all for it. As soon as they're unlinked we get to leave this crap town." Rebekah said as she walked through the kitchen dragging the dead girl by her arm. "Who do we have to kill?"

"Probably no one." Elijah answered as they watched Rebekah walk out the double doors of the kitchen. Katie turned her eyes to Elijah and raised a brow. "Alright, potentially everyone." Katie smiled and shook her head.

Klaus, no longer able to stay away from her, walked into the kitchen. "How's your head?"

"Slowly slacking off." She answered. "Can I ask for a favor?" she watched him grab a blood bag out of the icebox knowing that she always had blood after cereal.

"Of course." He replied as he grabbed a glass and started emptying the blood bag into it.

"I know why you let me sleep in this morning, but will you wake me up when you do from now on? I don't know if it's the case now, but back when I was human sleeping in always gave me a headache." She explained.

"Of course, luv." He answered then put the glass of blood down beside her almost empty bowl and pecked her on the head and rested his hand on the back of her chair.

"This is sleeping in?" Elijah asked with a look at his watch to see that she had woken up somewhere around eight. When they were together that was when she normally woke up.

"I'm kind of an early riser these days." Katie spoke up. "I don't know why, but my internal clock wakes me up at five thirty on the dot every morning. Not that I can complain." She looked at Klaus who gave her a smirk before he left the room.

"It's a good thing public displays of affection do not bother you brother." Rebekah commented as she walked into the room and grabbed a bucket and cleaning chemicals out from under the sink. "Because your ex and your brother do not know how to keep their hand off each other." she put the bucket in the sink and turned on the water. "It's enough to make your stomach churn."

"Okay, when you're ready to tell me your solution to my link to Sophie I'll be in the parlor." Katie stood up and grabbed the glass of blood Klaus had fixed her as an excuse to come into the room then looked at Rebekah. "Probably sucking face with your brother." Rebekah rolled her eyes as Katie left the kitchen.

She found Klaus sitting on the couch with a book in his hands and he held his arm out for her to sit next to him so she did. He wrapped it around her shoulders as she pulled her feet up on the couch and started reading the poem. She was halfway through the poison tree when Rebekah walked in and started scrubbing the floor. "Poems about poisoned apples from dead trees. Looks like someone's worried about impending daddyhood." She spoke up and Klaus closed the book then moved Katie to sit in his lap with one of his arms around her back that rested against the arm of the couch and the other hand in hers that rested on her lap.

"Nonsense, Elijah's back. In his presence, all problems turn to pixie dust and float away." Klaus said with a snarky smile.

Katie was about to say something, but Elijah walked in before she could and said, "Strange, I don't recall any pixie dust from the darkness of the coffin I was recently forced to endure."

"What are you doing with mother's spell book?" Rebekah asked from where she still sat on the floor scrubbing the rug.

"Well, in exchange for my freedom, I promised the witch Davina that I would share a few pages from mother's grimoire. I'll help her learn to control her magic." He answered as he tucked the pages into a black folder then into his jacket pocket.

"You're giving her an unlinking spell." Katie spoke up realizing that this was his solution to her problem.

"Precisely." Elijah told her with a smirk.

"Wait, you're using her to unlink Katie from Sophie?" Rebekah asked.

"Sophie brought us to this town under false pretenses. She doesn't just want us to take down Marcel and his minions. She wants to take Davina back. So she yoked her own causes to ours with magic, threats and half-truths. Well, no more. As of now, our deal with Sophie Deveraux is null and void. Niklaus I need you to come with me. I need five minutes alone with Davina and you need to make certain that I am not interrupted." Elijah looked at Rebekah in thought. "You stay here and watch Katie."

Rebekah stood up with a frown as Elijah turned and walked away. "How did I get elected super nanny?" she called after him.

"More importantly, who put him in charge?" Klaus asked as he patted Katie's leg. Katie stood up with a frown and Klaus looked down at her. "Looks like I have to go, Luv." He kissed her on the lips then looked at Rebekah.

"Yeah, yeah, keep an eye on your baby momma. I get it." Rebekah grumbled and Klaus kissed Katie one more time before he followed after Elijah. When Rebekah saw Katie still frowning she asked, "What?"

"Has Elijah always been that bossy?" she asked looking at the spot of blood on the floor before she looked up at Rebekah.

"He's just still mad at Nik for daggering him." Rebekah said and Katie felt like she was just making excuses for him. "Or he's trying to impress you, possibly both."

"That doesn't give him the right to boss you around." Katie argued. "You don't have to baby sit me either."

"I really don't mind." Rebekah told her with a wave of her hand.

"If you say so." Katie decided to leave it be for now. "I'm gonna go get dressed."

* * *

She was coming down stairs as Rebekah was going up them when a pain shot through her neck making her hiss in pain. "What the hell was that?" Rebekah asked as they both stopped in the middle of the stairs.

Katie touched her neck and felt blood on her fingers. "I'm about 99 percent sure that this is a Sophie thing." Katie said as Rebekah pulled Katie's hair to the side to see the smeared blood on her neck. "It felt like I was stabbed." Katie pulled out her phone and called Klaus letting him know that something was up with Sophie.

A few hours later Katie was sitting in the parlor reading a new pregnancy book that Klaus had bought her when Rebekah walked in with a basket of apples. "Time for the demon spawn to snack."

"Really, that's the best nickname you can come up with for your niece?" Katie asked with raised brows.

"I'm sorry do you have something else in mind?" she asked with a smirk then held the basket out to her. "Take one. The plantation is lousy with them." Katie plucked an apple out of the bowl and Rebekah placed them on the tray table in the room. "How's your neck?"

"It's fine, but my headache's back." Katie stood up, got light headed and grabbed the back of the chair to stabilize herself.

"Are you alright? You look flushed." Rebekah asked and placed a hand on Katie's forehead. "You're burning up." Rebekah pulled out her phone and called one of the brothers. "Off to bed with you." she started helping Katie up the stairs. After she got into bed Rebekah grabbed a damp cloth from the bathroom, came back in and placed it on Katie's head. "Elijah's on his way."

"What about Klaus?" Katie asked as she put her hand over the cloth on her head.

"He's finding Agnes to see if there's a way to stop this." She answered.

"And what is this?" Katie asked feeling like getting information out of Rebekah was comparable to pulling teeth.

"Agnes stabbed Sophie with a mystical syringe." Rebekah answered making Katie give her a look that told her to keep talking or she would do her best to kick her ass. "They're trying to make you miscarry by raising your body temperature." She answered reluctantly.

"God I swear I'm going to murder that bitch." Katie growled trough her teeth.

"Come now that's not helping." Rebekah scolded her then slid from the bed and took the clothes with her. She was placing the cloth back on Katie's forehead when Elijah and Sophie walked in. Rebekah slid down off the bed and looked at Elijah. "What the hell is she doing here?"

"I'm trying to help." Sophie defended herself.

"Help?" Rebekah asked disbelievingly. "You're the reason we're in this bloody mess. Why aren't we unlinked with this witch already, Elijah?"

"Rebekah, let her do what she can." Elijah told her.

"I may know of a way to slow the fever down, but I'm gonna need some special herbs. I'll text you a list." Sophie told Katie then looked at Rebekah.

Rebekah looked at Elijah who just looked back at her. "Fine. Happy to play the fetch girl." Rebekah told him as she walked by Elijah and slammed the damp cloth into his chest.

"Thank you Rebekah!" Katie called after her.

"Yeah, yeah." Rebekah grumbled back.

Katie looked at Elijah who took in the beads of sweat rolling off of Katie's forehead then turned his eyes to Sophie. "Is there anything we can be doing while Rebekah is gone?" He asked and she shook her head no looking worried. "Then you can wait in the parlor until she returns." He told her then looked at Katie as Sophie left the room.

"Elijah I didn't want to boss Rebekah around, but ice packs will work better than a damp cloth. I need five of them." She told him and he nodded and walked off to get them. In no time he was back with the cold packs in his hands. "I need one behind each ankle, one behind my neck then the other two on my wrists." He placed them on her hands and feet then sat down on the bed beside her and tucked one behind her neck. She laid her head back and closed her eyes as she focused on the sound of her daughter's heartbeat. She didn't realize she had started crying until she felt him wipe a tear. "I've lost one baby…I don't want to lose this one…" she whispered not opening her eyes.

"I will do everything in my power to ensure you will not lose your child." He assured her. She kept her eyes closed, but nodded. "How are you feeling?" he asked in an attempt to change the subject.

"Like a fire poker someone left in the coals too long." She answered then opened her eyes and looked at Elijah worried browns. "Where's Klaus?"

"Finding Agnes so we can figure out how to break this curse." He answered.

'Right, Rebekah told me that I forgot." She sighed. Elijah cupped her sweaty cheek in his hand and she let her eyes slip closed feeling dizzy and light headed as her head pounded.

After a few minutes Rebekah and Sophie came into the room. "Bring her out back." Sophie barked and Elijah scooped her up into his arms. He set her on the cement at the edge of the pool then took off his jacket and shoes.

"She's burning up we need to do this now." Elijah told Sophie who was mixing the herbs that Rebekah had retrieved.

"Get her in the water." Sophie told Elijah who jumped off the edge of the pool beside Katie then helped her slide down into the cool water. He kept his hand on her lower back as they walked into the center of the pool.

"I don't see how a midnight swim is supposed to help." Rebekah said watching Sophie mix the herbs.

"Her temperature is sky high. The water will help with the herbs...it should cool us down." Sophie answered as she got into the pool and walked over to Elijah and Katie. "Drink this." She told Katie who took a cup of herbs from her and started drinking. "You're going to have to get her heart rate down."

"And how do you suggest I do that?" Elijah asked as Katie handed Sophie the cup back.

"Hold her. It's a natural human remedy to slow the heart rate and reduce blood pressure." Sophie answered.

Katie wrapped her arm around Elijah's shoulders as he scooped her up bridal style and sank down waist deep in the water. "This is never going to work." Rebekah chipped in and Katie wished she would just stop talking.

"Davina will break that link. We just need time." Elijah told his sister then looked at Katie.

In that moment, mere minutes away from losing her baby, resting in Elijah's arms, slightly delirious from the high temperature of her body, all she could think was one thing, "I want Klaus." She sounded like a child in pain, asking for her mommy.

"I know you do." Elijah told her and she looked at him apologetically. "I also know you find my voice relaxing."

"Only when you're not bossing your siblings around." She replied and he ignored it. She dropped one hand from his shoulders and placed it on her stomach, hoping with everything in her that she wouldn't lose this child.

"Look at me, Katie, listen to the sound of my voice." She looked into Elijah chocolate eyes. "Take long deep breaths." She nodded and focused on him and he lowered her further into the water. "I've got you. You're okay. You're okay." His hand that rested on her outer thigh caressed her in an attempt to sooth her. "Just breathe, I've got you."

Just as the grandfather clock in the house struck nine an intense pain shot through her stomach making Katie cry out and curl up in Elijah's arms. Out of instinct Katie started listening to her baby's heartbeat finding that it was gradually slowing. "No, no, no." She cried as she caressed her stomach, "Don't leave me baby girl." she pressed her face into Elijah's wet chest.

"I just felt it lift." She heard Sophie say behind her.

As Elijah continued to hold her, Katie listened to the baby's heart beat pick back up as her own body temperature started dropping. She looked up at Elijah who let her go so she could stand up. A relieved sigh left her lips as she let her head fall to rest on Elijah's shoulder. He grabbed her hand and opened it to look at her palm. "You are no longer linked to Sophie." She pulled her head back and looked at his handsome face.

"I'm free?" she asked and he gave her a hard faced nod. "I don't know how to thank you." she said with a shake of her head.

"You can start by getting inside and dry before you catch a cold." He told her as he put his hand on her lower back and urged her toward the steps.

"Elijah." Sophie got Elijah's attention and he stopped. "As soon as your brother finds out that the link is broken, he'll kill Agnes." Katie stopped and rested her forehead on the edge of the pool. "I know you don't owe me anything, but please don't let him kill her." Elijah whooshed out of the pool and grabbed his coat off of the back of one of the chairs that sat at the patio table. "Elijah! She's the only access to the power we need to survive. Promise me that you'll stop him." Elijah looked at Katie who shook he head no.

He looked at his phone and called Klaus. "It's me. Where are you?" he asked. Katie was too tired to listen in on the conversation. "No. Don't hurt her. Yes, Katie and the baby are okay. I'll be there shortly." He hung up then looked at Sophie. "I'll make you one last promise. I won't let my brother kill Agnes."

He grabbed his shoes and headed inside. When Sophie walked past her to leave the pool Katie grabbed her by her arm. "The only reason you are still alive, is because I get why you linked yourself to me and you tried to help me tonight. But if you _ever_ put my baby's life in jeopardy again…" Katie looked across her shoulder into Sophie's eyes, "this town will be bathed in the blood of New Orleans witches." She let go of Sophie's arm and walked up the steps and into the house. She was headed to her room when she passed Elijah. "Elijah." he stopped and looked back at her, "Please tell me that you are planning on utilizing the massive loop hole in your promise to Sophie."

He walked back over to her and cupped her cheek in his hand. "No one hurts my family and gets away with it. She will pay for what she did." She nodded and he dropped his hand and left.

* * *

Rebekah packed her things and found Katie in the parlor searching the internet to see if what she had been through tonight could effect the baby long term. "You're leaving?" Katie asked noticing the luggage in Rebekah's hands.

"I only came to town to make sure everything was okay with Elijah. He's fine and he hasn't punished Klaus for daggering him. So as usual they'll be thick as thieves and I'll be left to clean up the mess." Rebekah told her. "It's time for me to fly the coup."

Katie got up and hugged Rebekah. "Believe it or not I'll miss you."

* * *

It was just Katie in the house when she heard a knock on the door. She moved the curtain aside and saw a guy who looked to be around her age. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name's Josh, I'm looking for Klaus." He answered.

Knowing who Josh was she pulled the door open. "He's not here."

"Well, where is he? I've been trying to find him all day." Josh asked. "Marcel knows that Klaus lied about where he lives."

"I don't know where he's at, but when I see him I'll tell him to call you, okay?" she asked.

"Thanks." He told her with a nod then turned and walked away.

She was on her way back upstairs when she heard another knock at the door. "I just want to go to sleep." She whined to herself as she turned around and headed back to the door. She pulled the curtain back and when her eyes landed on Marcel she stumbled back and mentally started cursing.

She was debating on rather she should answerer the door or not when Marcel said, "I know someone's there." She silently growled as she placed her hand on the door knob then made her face neutral as she pulled the door open. "Scarlett." Marcel greeted with a confused smile. "Bradley didn't say anything about you being back to town."

"I just got in, I was planning on surprising him." She lied smoothly. "So if you could not tell him I'm in town it would be greatly appreciated."

"Of course." He told her with a nod.

"So what can I do for you?" she asked politely.

"Is Klaus in?" he asked and she shook her head no. "Will you tell him I stopped by?" he asked with his smile that seemed to be signature.

"Sure thing." she told him with a nod then shut the door as he turned and walked away.

She was headed back up the stairs when she heard a whoosh then a stabbing pain shot through her neck and she passed out.

**A/N:** Sorry for the long wait. Thank you OnASnowyDay for your help. As always thank you to everyone for reading. Reviews, favorites and follows are always appreciated and I hope you all have a good day/night.


	43. Chapter 43

**A/N:** Smut has been marked between paragraphs with a bold S before and after the smut so that it's easier to skip of you don't like it or aren't in the mood to read it.

**Phoenix Rising**

**Ch. 43**

Katie woke up in the back of a suv, her hands were tied together with tick plastic zip ties. Her feet were bare, so she couldn't use her shoestrings to melt the zip ties. Besides it's not like she could jump from a moving vehicle and risk hurting the baby. So instead she peeked over the back seat to see who was driving. She couldn't tell much from the back of his head, but when she looked at the driver's eyes in the rearview she knew exactly who it was. "Tyler?" she asked as she stood up on her knees now seeing a girl sitting in the passenger seat who turned to look at her. "Hayley?"

"Long time no see." Tyler replied and kept driving.

"Wanna tell me why you're kidnapping me?" she asked as she moved her arms over the seat.

"Wanna tell me why you were shacked up in a mansion with Klaus?" he countered.

"I was under the impression that Caroline told you everything, things like, "Oh my god, did you hear? Katie and Klaus totally together now."." Katie commented. "Or did she finally dump you like I did?" she asked with a look at Hayley.

"What happened to the sweet and caring girl I grew up with?" he asked with a scoff.

"The same thing that happened to the secretly sweet guy I grew up with. You've changed."

"Because your boyfriend murdered my mom, Katie!" he yelled.

"Because you tried to kill him, Tyler!" she yelled back then stopped and thought about it. "Is that what this is about?" she asked knowing Tyler's werewolf temper was probably worse now that he was a hybrid. "He killed your mom so you're going to kill me to get revenge?"

"I'm not going to kill you." Tyler told her with a scoff.

"Just your baby." Hayley spoke up from the passenger seat with at look at Katie over her shoulder.

"What!" Katie asked now wishing that jumping out the back glass was an option.

"Hayley!" Tyler scolded.

"What? It's the truth." Hayley shrugged with a look at Katie that said she wasn't happy about it then looked back out the front glass.

"How did you find out?" Katie asked shakily, knowing she was in no condition to take on Tyler.

"I've been running with wolf packs all over the country. One of them was tight with a witch. She had nightmare visions about your baby and how Klaus could use its blood to make an army of hybrid slaves." Tyler told her. "She also mentioned that the baby's mother was losing her vampire traits. So I know you can't fight me, not that you ever could."

"I fucking hate witches and their stupid, inaccurate premonitions concerning my baby." She scoffed. "I seriously doubt that my baby could sire hybrids. Elena's blood is needed to complete the transition and she is no longer human."

Tyler pulled the car to a stop then got out and walked around to the back and pulled the hatch open. "Get out, we're walking from here." Katie looked down at her bare feet. He rolled his eyes and grabbed his bag out of the back seat then gave her a pair of his tennis shoes and socks.

The sun started coming up as she put on his shoes that fit her size eight feet perfectly. "You know what they say about a guy with small feet." She commented and looked up at him to see him looking at her with flared nostrils. "They have a small ego." She finished then hopped down out of the back of the suv. "Where are we anyway?"

"The armpit of Louisiana, where Hayley's pack is forced to live thanks to your vampire friends." he answered. "We're meeting a friend of mine." Katie looked at him then down at the dirt road they were standing on. "Don't try to run. We both know you won't get far."

"Tyler, please don't do this." She begged, wishing that she was still linked to Elijah just so he would be able to find her and lead Klaus to her. She didn't have her phone on her considering there were no pockets in her pink and black athletic shorts and the likely hood of a witch doing a locator spell on her was unlikely. "Please don't be like Katherine. Don't stoop to her level." Katie wrapped her arms around her stomach. Tyler glared at her.

"We need to get moving." Hayley told them as she walked around the car.

"Katherine did me a favor." He told Katie with a glare. "She kept me from making the worst decision I ever could have made." Despite the pain his words caused she held her head high. "You and that baby would have ruined my life."

"Because your life is so amazing these days, right?" she asked quietly. "Does Caroline know you're running around with Hayley and trying to murder an innocent baby?" he moved around to the passenger side of the car, grabbed a roll of duct tape, tore a piece off, slapped it over her mouth then shoved her to start walking.

Eventually they got to a cabin on the water where a tall, built, dark headed guy wearing jeans and an open flannel button up shirt over a plain white t-shirt was waiting on them. "Is that her?" it was obvious that he was a werewolf.

"Yeah, Dwayne. Get her inside." Tyler answered while Hayley and Tyler headed off to one of the campers that sat around.

Dwayne grabbed Katie by her arm and pulled her into the cabin where he zip tied one of her hands to the leg of a really heavy wrought iron heater, took the duct tape off her mouth then left. After a few minutes Tyler came in with a duffle bag and sat it on the table. "So are you and Hayley a thing now?" Katie asked just to make noise.

"Nope she just wanted to see the miracle pregnancy for herself. It's not every day you see a pregnant vampire." He answered as Dwayne walked in. "You ready for this?" Tyler asked him.

"Let's do it." Dwayne replied then walked over to Katie as Tyler pulled a syringe with a long, thin needle out of the bag.

"Please tell me that's a not a cursed object you got from your witch friend." Katie told him with a wide eyed look at the clear syringe in his hand.

"What? No." Tyler told her.

"Oh, thank god I don't have to go through that again." She sighed making Tyler give her a questioning look. "You're not the first person to try to kill my child and you won't be the last."

He came at her with the syringe and she kicked him in the face, breaking his nose. "That was stupid."

"Klaus likes my fight." She commented. "He will find me you know. He will make you pay and I will smile as I watch him do it." she was mainly bluffing, but she also knew if someone could find her, it would be Klaus.

"Klaus destroyed everything good in my life!" Tyler yelled at her. "So I'm gonna take away the thing he wants most. He will not come for you and he will not save you." With a whoosh Tyler put a zip tie around her ankles. Dwayne grabbed it and her free arm, keeping her from kicking or hitting Tyler who pulled up her tank top and stabbed her in the stomach. As Katie fought to get her arm from Dwayne's grasp Tyler pulled blood from her womb. When he pulled the needle out Dwayne let her go then walked over to Tyler who stabbed him in the neck with the syringe and injected him with the baby's blood. Tyler glared at her as he broke Dwayne's neck.

"You're trying to turn him." Katie observed.

"Don't look at me like that. He volunteered." Tyler told her.

"He volunteered to die a slow, painful death?" Katie asked with a glare. "Even if this baby's blood can start the transition he still needs Elena's blood to complete it."

"According to the witch I spoke to all he needs to do is feed on you." Tyler said as he pointed down at her.

"Even if that is true, how are you so sure that Klaus even knows that this is possible?" Katie asked. "Besides, I seriously doubt he would pull enough blood from our baby to make an army, much less let them feed on me."

"You don't seriously think he cares about you and this baby do you?" Tyler asked with a scoff as he pulled a silver dagger out of the duffle bag that he tossed to the floor then set the dagger on the table.

"I don't _think_ he does…I _know_ he does." Katie told him through gritted teeth.

"Come on Katie, he's _Klaus Mikaelson_! You're telling me the killer of men, women and puppies all of a sudden wants to be a daddy? No. He has ulterior motives." He told her as he kneeled down to be eye level with her. "Hybrids are all sired to him." The hybrids were sired to Klaus because they felt grateful to him for freeing them from their curse. "They'll take over New Orleans by the end of the week, and do you know what's gonna stop Klaus then? Nothing." Both of them jumped when Dwayne took in a loud, guttural breath. "Feed on her." Tyler told him and Dwayne just look at him. So Tyler cut the side of Katie's neck. Drawn to her blood, Dwayne quickly crossed the room and bit her neck. After a few seconds he pulled away screaming as he stumbled outside, dealing with the pain of transition.

Tyler dropped the dagger that had been in his hand and went after Dwayne. Katie tried to reach the dagger with her feet, but it was just out of her reach. Remembering how quickly Tyler calmed down after completing the transition she knew she didn't have time to melt the zip ties. So instead she grabbed a large splinter of wood from under the heater and hid it behind her back. She listened to Tyler talking to Dwayne before he came back inside. "It worked…didn't it?"

"If Klaus gets that kid, he wins." Tyler picked up the dagger and started walking over to her.

"Tyler this isn't you. This is revenge talking. Please don't kill my baby." She begged him.

She was about to stab him with the makeshift stake when Dwayne, who heard her, came back inside. "Get away from her."

Tyler grabbed to wood from her hand and tossed it aside. "What do you care?" he asked turning his back on Katie.

"I said get away!" he yelled at Tyler and Katie realized that Dwayne was sired to her and the baby.

"Please, Dwayne, help me." Katie begged putting her acting skills to use. "He's trying to kill me and my baby. He'll keep me from being able to help your people, please stop him." she begged, tears streaming down her face.

Dwayne grabbed Tyler making him drop the dagger and threw him into the back wall of the shack. Katie grabbed the dagger and cut the zip tie on her hand and feet then bolted out the door. She ran in the direction she remembered Tyler's car being in and didn't stop. Not until someone caught her with their arm around her shoulders and she started swinging the dagger that she held in her fist thinking it was Tyler. "Katie!" Elijah said as he caught her swinging hand and took the blade out of it. "It's me."

"Oh thank god." She sighed and stumbled back, resting her back against a tree as she attempted to catch her breath. "Where's Klaus?"

"This way." He held his hand out to her and she took it.

He whooshed her to Klaus who was outside the cabin, pinning Tyler to a tree with his hand in his chest. "Klaus." Katie said getting his attention as she walked over to them.

With his hand still in Tyler's chest he leaned down and kissed her deeply then rested his forehead on hers. "Are you alright, Little Phoenix?"

"I'm okay." She answered then lifted her head from Klaus's to look him in the eyes. "Can I have a word with him before you rip his heart from his chest?" Klaus nodded and pulled his hand out of Tyler's chest then moved to stand beside him, ready to pounce if Tyler was stupid enough to make a move toward her. She looked into his brown eyes and said, "I told you so." The three men watched as she narrowed her eyes in thought then cocked her head to the side. "That didn't feel good enough." Elijah knew what was coming when Katie readied her stance then smirked with a little pride as she threw the punch he had taught her in her past life, catching Tyler's jaw with her fist. "Nope that didn't do it either. I have a feeling it hurt me more than it hurt you." She said as she shook her fist and looked at her red knuckles. She thought for another second. "Oh I know." She walked over to Elijah and took the dagger he still held in his hand. "Now, I don't know exactly how you were planning on achieving your mission," Katie walked back over to Tyler and Klaus, "But I have a feeling that it would have gone something like this." She stabbed him in one hip sinking the six inch blade in to its hilt. He threw his head back and screamed out in pain. Klaus grabbed his face in his hand and made him look her in the eyes as she pulled the blade across his stomach to his other hip giving the blade a twist before she pulled it out.

"Yeah, you'll make a great mother." Tyler panted out.

"You know how most mothers call themselves a lion when they go into protection mode?" she asked pointing at him with the bloody dagger. "I'm not a lion. I'm a phoenix and I will _incinerate_ anyone who poses a threat to my child." She told him through gritted teeth then looked at Klaus to see him looking at her with a mix of pride and love. "He's all yours, Big Bad Wolf."

Katie walked over to stand next to Elijah. "I taught you that punch." He told her with a smirk.

"Mmhmm." She hummed with a smirk over at him then watched Klaus shove his hand back into Tyler's chest. "The only thing you can do is kill me. So go on. Go on! Get it over with." Tyler yelled at him.

"You _want_ me to end your suffering, don't you?" Klaus asked him. "I broke you, took everything from you, and now you're begging me to sweep away the shards of your shattered little life." Katie and Elijah watched as Klaus twisted his hand in Tyler's chest. Elijah took a step toward them, but Katie stuck her arm out, stopping him from stopping Klaus. Klaus jerked his hand from Tyler's chest and Katie was a little disappointed to see that it didn't contain Tyler's heart. "Death offers more peace than you deserve. It's better to let you live. Each morning you will wake knowing that your wretched existence continues only by my will. Now go and live the rest of your days knowing you…are…nothing to us." Klaus let him go and he whooshed away.

"Do you know why he took me?" she asked and he shook his head no. "Come on, I need to show you something." She led him into the cabin and Elijah followed them. She motioned to Dwayne's lifeless body.

"What's this?" Klaus asked as he kneeled down and looked at him.

"A hybrid." Katie answered as Klaus rolled him over.

"I didn't sire him." Klaus pointed out as he stood up.

"I know…our baby and I did." She answered as she leaned back on the table in the room.

"What?" Klaus asked with a hard face.

"Tyler stabbed me in the stomach with a syringe, took the baby's blood, injected it into Dwayne here then broke his neck. When he woke up he fed on me and completed the transition." She answered and Elijah's jaws slacked a bit. "A wolf pack Tyler ran with was friends with a witch who had a premonition that you knew what she could do and were going to use her to create a hybrid army, sired to you." She pushed herself off the table and headed outside where it was a little cooler. "But just like Sabine's this vision was flawed." She was going to explain that Dwayne was sired to her, but Elijah spoke up before she could.

"Did you know?" Elijah asked Klaus as both of them followed Katie out.

"Of course not." Klaus replied as he and Katie stopped on the porch. Elijah walked past them to stand at the bottom of the steps, looking up at them. He just narrowed his eyes at Klaus. "You don't believe me."

"I can't help but wonder." Elijah replied.

"Of course you don't. I mean, why else would I show any interest in my own flesh and blood?" he asked rhetorically. Katie frowned at Elijah. How could he believe Tyler and this unknown witch's premonition over Klaus? "A heartbroken little crybaby pointes his finger at me and my own brother falls in line, eager to believe it. How quickly you assume the worst of me."

"Oh spare me your indignation. You have done nothing but use your love for Katie and the baby to excuse your own selfish pursuits." Elijah snapped at Klaus making Katie's frown turn to a glare. "How are we supposed to know when your selfishness trumps your love for them?" he asked and Katie opened her mouth to speak, but Elijah didn't give her the time. "What was it you once said to me?" he asked then mimicked the way Klaus talked as he said, "Every king needs an heir."

"My big brother." Klaus said with a nod. "So you doubt my intentions. Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Standing beside the noble Elijah how can I be anything but the lesser brother? A liar, a manipulator…a bastard?" Klaus walked down the steps to glare down at Elijah. "That's all I am to you, isn't it, and to Rebekah…and no doubt if you have any say my child will as well."

"Brother, if I-" Elijah started.

"You've said," Klaus grabbed Elijah shoulder and pointed his finger in his face, "all that needs to be said, Brother." He held his hands up in surrender and took a few steps back. As he turned to Katie and she knew by the devious look on his smirking face that he was about to do something stupid, but in the moment she couldn't blame him. "I'll play the roll I've been given." With a whoosh he turned around and bit Elijah on the neck. "Consider that bite my parting gift." He walked away.

Katie started to walk past Elijah, but he grabbed her wrist stopping her. There was a silent question in his brown orbs. "First off, get your hand off me." he dropped her wrist. "Second, I hope that "we" you mentioned earlier was the royal we, because there is no you and me and unlike you, I do not doubt his intentions for our child. And lastly, I'm too tired and pissed at you to try to guess at the question in your eyes."

"Forgive me." he told her.

"I'm not the one you hurt with your insults." She told him with a shake of her head. "Have fun with your hallucinations." She walked over to the tree line where Klaus was waiting for her. Elijah watched as Klaus scooped her up bridal style and whooshed away.

* * *

"Do you think I was wrong to bite Elijah?" Klaus asked from where he stood behind her in the glassed in shower with his arms wrapped around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder. She had been quiet since they left the bayou and he couldn't help but wonder if she was mad at him for biting Elijah and just didn't want to say so.

"I don't know." She sighed closing her eyes at the feel of his touch. "What I do know is he was wrong to think, even for a second, that you would use our child like that." She stepped out of his arms and put some shampoo in her hand, closed her eyes and started washing her hair. Klaus took the opportunity to let his eyes explore her naked form. "Tyler was adamant that the new hybrids would be sired to you."

"But you know differently." He prompted as he watched the bubbles slip down her pail skin.

"The hybrids were sired to you because they were grateful to you for taking away the agony of turning every full moon." She pointed out then started rinsing the suds from her hair.

"But if my blood isn't what turns them…they wouldn't be sired to me. You would be their sire." He realized.

"And I am no one's leader." When she was done rinsing the suds out of her hair she wiped her hands over her face then opened her eyes to see him gazing at her. "What was going through your mind after I stabbed Tyler?" she asked as she grabbed a washcloth and soap and started washing the layer of sweat and swamp humidity from her skin.

He turned her around and started washing her back with a wet soapy washcloth. She just sighed, enjoying the relaxing feeling. "I was thinking…Bloody hell who is this woman and how am I lucky enough to call her mine?" he answered then wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held the rag out to her. She took it, rinsed it out then added his soap and started washing him. After washing his back she let the cloth fall to the floor, rinsed off his back then started massaging his toned, tight muscles. He moaned and placed his hand on the shower wall in front of him and let his head fall forward. After while of her hands kneading and loosening his tight muscles, she added kisses to her caresses relaxing him even more. "Why am I getting pampered when you're the one who's had a bad past two days?" he asked then sighed, loving her touch.

"Not that I need an excuse to pleasure you, but because you saved me." she answered between kisses. "So shut up and enjoy it." she told him with a bossy tone.

He smiled "Yes ma'am."

* * *

Later that evening she was leaning against the footboard of their bed in a pair of athletic shorts and one of Klaus's clean short sleeved Henley shirts fiddling with her necklace while she listened to Klaus and Rebekah talking downstairs. Apparently she changed her mind about leaving and Klaus wanted her help to spy on Marcel. She had stopped listening to them and was lost in thought when Klaus found her. "What are you thinking about, Little Phoenix?" he walked over to her and wrapped his arms loosely around her waist.

"You." she answered simply, still playing with her necklace.

"What about me?" he asked thinking she was just going to plow him with compliments like usual.

She dropped her eyes to his chest. "Last night, when I was getting delirious from a spiking fever and seconds away from losing our child…Elijah was holding me in the pool and talking to me because he knows I find his voice calming…I could only form one coherent thought." She dropped her necklace and looked up at him. "I want Klaus."

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. "I'm sorry." He whispered and she moved her hands to rest on his chest. "I should have come to you and let Elijah handle Agnes."

"No." She told him as she pulled her head back and looked him in the eyes. "You were exactly where you needed to be. You're not the kind of man who sits around and waits for someone else to solve his problems and I'm not asking you to be anyone other than yourself. I hope I never do that." She assured him. "The moment was just a bit of an eye opener I guess." She slid her hands up to rest on each side of his neck.

"And what did that moment allow you to see?" he asked as he rubbed her sides with his thumbs.

"I don't know. That's what I was trying to figure out when you so rudely interrupted my thoughts." She told him with a coy smile and a look up at him through her lashes.

"Well," he pulled the corners of his lips down and tilted his head, a bit of playfulness in his eyes as he took a step back, "Shall I leave you to it then?" He turned his back on her and started toward the bedroom door.

"Don't you dare." She caught his wrist and gave it a tug. He turned around with a laugh and wrapped his arms around her waist resting his hands on her butt and caught her lips with his. When the kiss broke she asked, "How did the two of you find me out there in the middle of nowhere?"

"Before I found out you were missing Marcel told me he'd come here. So Elijah and I assumed he had taken you. We went to him and he let Sabine do a locator spell to prove he didn't have you. She got us in the general area, your scent in Tyler's car got me the rest of the way." He answered.

She tilted her head to the side. "You could track me by smell?" she asked and he nodded. "Is that an original vampire thing or a wolf thing?"

"Wolf." he answered with a smirk.

"And you've memorized my scent?" she asked with a flattered smile.

"It changes with time. Since we've moved here your soap, shampoo and deodorant all match. So your scent is a mix of pomegranate, lemon verbena and a scent specific to you that I can't describe." he answered then smirked.

"That's…weirdly romantic." She told him with a smirk back as she turned around and crawled onto the bed then flopped back. After going twenty four hours with no sleep the feel of the bed under her tired back felt like heaven and she sighed at its comfort.

"You must be exhausted." He observed as he crawled onto the bed, hovering over her and she simply nodded. "Then let's get some rest." He tried to move to lay beside her, but she put her hand on his chest, stopping him. The look in her eyes told him what she wanted. So he leaned down and ghosted his lips teasingly over her cheek and lips, loving how just that was enough to make her visibly relax before he caught her lips in a tender kiss.

She sighed, loving his kisses and the wide range of things he could convey through them. Sometimes they told each other more with their kisses than with their words. Right now she could tell that he wanted her to feel safe, loved and that he would do anything to make her happy. That he would stand by her and always be there for her.

Just like he could tell through hers that she cared for him with every bone in her body. That she would stand with him against anyone who accused him of untrue wrong doings. Just like with their daughter she would do her best to incinerate anyone who tried to hurt him, regardless that he was an original hybrid that physically didn't need her protection. She conveyed with her every touch that she would be his pillar of strength. Unlike his siblings she would always be on his side and have his back. She had proven that today when not once, did she question his intentions for their daughter.

After a while he broke the kiss, grabbed the covers from the foot of the bed and pulled them over them as he moved to lie on his side facing her. She turned onto her side and picked up one of his hands, kissed his palm and his wrist then set his hand on her neck. "You know in about a month or so we won't be able to sleep like this anymore." She pointed out with a look down at her growing stomach that put space between them.

"Speaking of sleeping." He started and she looked up from her stomach to his dark blues. "I am not the only one who is subconsciously clingy." She just smiled, knowing she had always been a bit clingy, but he didn't seem to mind. "You're right, it's cute." He told her with a small smile of his own as she watched her heavy eyelids slip closed. "Just like the almost unnoticeable freckles on your nose and the way you're trying really hard not to nod off right now." he told her quietly.

She opened her eyes childishly angry at them for closing without her approval. "I just missed you is all." She sighed, her eyes slipping shut again.

He chuckled at her. "Good night, Little Phoenix."

"Good night, Love." She sighed as she slipped off to sleep. He picked his head up from where it had been resting on his pillow as his eyes grew wide at her use of the L word. He was aware that she was half asleep and that she was probably just copying how he called her love all the time, but it still brought a proud smile to his face as he took in her sleeping one and laid his head back down on his pillow.

* * *

Even though she had been extremely tired the night before Katie woke up at her usual time and looked up at Klaus's face to see him still sound asleep. With a sleepy smile she lifted her hand and brushed her fingers through his hair. She thought it would wake him up, but it only made him sigh in contentment. She gazed at his relaxed face and plump lips that were parted slightly. As she looked at his face her thoughts turned to Elijah, wondering where he was and how this was the second time he had been bitten by a werewolf and she wasn't there to help him. The only difference between this time and the first was that this time she didn't feel responsible and therefore didn't feel like it was her place to help him. Yes it sucked that he was suffering, but if he hadn't believed the worst of his brother then he wouldn't be in this situation.

Klaus woke and looked down at Katie to see her playing with her necklace as she usually did when she was in deep though. Something he noticed usually happened early in the morning and late at night. "Penny for your thoughts." He whispered making her look up at him and drop the pendent to place her hands on his chest.

"I'd prefer a kiss." She told him with a small smirk and sleepy eyes.

"You didn't sleep well." He pointed out as he lifted his hand and touched the dark circle under her eyes.

"Someone was restless." She replied with a glance down at her stomach. He leaned in and pressed a slow lingering kiss to he lips then lifted a brow at her when he pulled back. "Right, my thoughts…" she sighed. "I was trying to remember how long it takes for the effects of a werewolf bite to wear off and wondering if a hybrid bite was more potent."

"You're thinking about Elijah." He pointed out.

"Just trying to figure out how long it's going to be before a pissed off original walks into the house." She answered.

"I know a small part of you still cared about him even after you let him go and stayed with me." he pointed out and she opened her mouth to argue, but he spoke before she could. "I know you sweetheart, I just don't know if that part still exists."

"You sometimes know me better than I know me I guess." She told him. "I didn't realize that I'd still been carrying a little torch for him until my eyes were opened by vulnerability and a spiking fever." He blinked at her knowing it and hearing her say it were two different things. "But I assure you, that tiny torch has been put out and dissolved by the water in that pool. I told you that you were the only man I wanted. I meant it when I said it and I mean it now when I say that you are the _only_ man I will _ever _want." A small smile pulled at the corners of his perfect lips. "No one will ever be able to measure up to you." he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her as close as her belly would allow.

As things fell quiet between then her thoughts turned to the day she went to Elijah to get the cure for a werewolf bite for Damon and found him in Alaric's apartment with Klaus. She knew Klaus probably didn't care about her much then considering he had stabbed her in the back and broken her neck the day before, but she couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if Stefan hadn't caught her when she lunged at Klaus, raging mad at him for daggering Elijah. "Your mind has left the building again, Luv." Klaus pointed out.

"I was thinking about when I followed Elijah to Alaric's apartment in the hopes of getting the cure for a werewolf bite for Damon." She told him not looking at him. "After you daggered Elijah I was ready to attempt to behead you and I would have tried had Stefan not stopped me. It's a good thing he did or I might not be here right now."

"You think I would have killed you?" he asked with a look at her.

She shrugged and moved her eyes from his chest to his dark blues. "Death threats are kind of a Mikealson go to, hard to tell when you mean them and when you're just trying to get someone to back down. You didn't know me well back then, you only knew what Elijah had told you."

"I told you before then that I wouldn't kill you." he reminded her.

"So what would you have done if Stefan hadn't stopped me?" she asked.

"Broken your neck." he answered without hesitation. "For the record I didn't know it would hurt you when I daggered Elijah. Not that I would have let it stop me if I had."

"He tried to kill you, you wanted to punish him. I get it." She recalled. "For the record, I was only on board with that plan because Elijah was and you know, we thought you had buried your siblings in the bottom of the ocean." She told him as she rolled over and straddled his hips. "A lot of my change of attitude toward you has to do with the subconsciously blocked memories I got back over the summer while you and Stefan were off trying to create hybrids."

He sat up and she wrapped her legs around him. "What do your memories of Elijah have to do with me?" he asked, leaning back on his hands behind him and she cocked a brow at him because he should know the answer to his question. "You liked to hear Elijah talk and asked him to tell you stories about his family." He remembered her telling him that when she explained how she knew that his mother wanting Elena dead meant that Elena had to be alive in order for him to sire hybrids.

"I only realized recently that most night's I asked about you." she told him making him smirk, happy that even when she was with Elijah he was the one that caught her attention and he wasn't even around her then. "Rebekah seemed like your typical, only sister spoiled by her brothers. Finn I found…" Katie tilted her head back and faked snoring then looked back at Klaus to see him quietly laughing at her. "Kol was a trouble making playboy, not very interesting to me. Then there was you…the monster of a brother that Elijah hoped I never met. He never used the word bastard to describe you, by the way. I hate it when you call yourself that."

"He was right to hope you'd never meet me." he told her meaning it.

"Yeah because you killed me as soon as you laid eyes on me." she argued as she placed her hands on his chest absentmindedly.

"I didn't kill you the first time I laid eyes on you." she cocked her head at him with a questioning look. Instead of answering her with words he kissed her forehead.

_Hannah stood with her back turned, the wind blowing her curls as she hung laundry on the line. An Irish folk song left her lips in a thick accent. Elijah was fixing the fence on the horses pin, smiling because Hannah was singing his favorite song. When she was finished hanging laundry she walked over to Elijah and he stood from his work to place a loving kiss on her lips. Jonah was in town with Fiona so the kiss quickly became heated and Elijah whooshed them inside._ The setting changed. _Hannah kneeled in the forest behind her house a basket of mushrooms in her hand. Getting the feeling she was being watched she stood and looked around, her eyes scanned over Klaus, though her human eyes missed him in the distance._ The setting changed again._ She sat in a chair in front of her cabin knitting a pair of socks, humming to herself enjoying the light breeze that blue her bright wild curls that slipped out of the ribbon that failed to tame them._

He took his hand from her head and the images faded. "How long did you do that?" Katie asked with wide eyes.

"A week." He answered, but it sounded more like a question. "Even then you captivated me. Unfortunately your beauty and siren voice didn't trump the fact that you were keeping Elijah away from his family." They both got lost in thought, thinking about the past, before he asked, "Will you sing that song for me?"

"It was Elijah's favorite." She answered feeling a little weird about singing one brother's favorite song for the other.

"Ah, well in this case he has good taste." He told her with a smile.

"It won't sound the same." She warned him and he gave her puppy dog eyes making her laugh at him. "Sure." He smiled as he sat up straighter and wrapped his arms around her waist, raising his brows at her to let her know she could start singing any time now. "Oh I wish I was on yonder hill. Tis there I'd sit and cry my fill, till every tear would turn a mill. Is go dte tu mo mhuirnin slan (and my you go safely my darling)." As she sang the chorus that was entirely Irish her accent made an appearance and both her and Klaus's eyes widened. Goose bumps appeared on her arms as she sang the rest of the song. When it was over a bright smile that matched his took over her face. "That felt good, like I was my old self, barefoot in the warm Irish soil."

"One of these days I will take you back there." She laughed as she pressed her lips to his. He sat up and wrapped his arms around her, catching her lips with his for a long, breath taking kiss.

He kissed to her neck and a moan slipped from her lips when he slipped his hand over her chest and gave it a light pinch. "Why does that always feel so damn good?" she sighed. It wasn't like the other guys she had been with hadn't paid her chest any attention.

"Because I love your breasts." He whispered then gave her earlobe a nibble.

"And I love your hands." She added as she tilted her head to the side and her hands slipped over the smooth soft skin of his back.

He noticed her use of the L word again, but was too enthralled with her hands caressing him too think too much about it at the moment. When she skimmed her fingernails down his back quiet grunt lift his lips and he pulled away from her neck to look her in the eyes. The veil of lust in her eyes made him ask, "Are you sure you're up for it?" To answer his question she let the blood flow to her eyes, glanced at his neck then gave him a suggestive smirk. "Ah, you becoming half human has its perks for me." He said, happy that she was asking for his blood so she could have the energy to be with him.

She laughed and took her hand away from his back to slip her fingertips over his under eyes. Knowing what she wanted he gave her a half smile as the veins appeared under his eyes, the whites became a deep, almost black, shade of red and his irises turned a glowing shade of amber. "Holy shit." She sighed and he smiled bigger showing her his double fangs. "Do you have any idea how bad I want you to bite me?"

"Trust me, love, I want to." He told her but they both knew his toxin would put her and the baby at risk. So instead he'd have to settle for the one sided intimacy that only her feeding on him would give him. So while she kept her vampire face on he put his away and caught her lips with his.

**S**

He held her in his lap, rocking into her when he tilted his head to the side asking her to bite him. She kissed just below his ear down to where his neck met his shoulder then sank her teeth into him. The sensation pulled a moan from him and he wrapped his arms tighter around her waist.

After a few minutes Katie pulled back and looked him in the eyes. A drop of his blood slipped from the corner of her mouth. He loved the sight. It wasn't every day he got to see her like this, with her true face on display and blood on her lips. He used his thumb to wipe the blood from her mouth then watched as she took it into her mouth and pulled back slowly swirling her tongue around the digit. "Bloody hell, luv." He sighed as he fell forward grabbed one of her hands and threaded their fingers together as he pinned it to the bed beside her head. His other hand slipped over her chest making her sigh and arch her back as her hand slid across his shoulders, lightly scratching him as he rocked into her.

**S**

Coming down off their high, Katie fell to lie beside him on her side, one hand propping up her head while the other traced his abs. When her finger slipped over his hip bone he twitched. With narrowed eyes and a devious smirk she repeated her action this time a huff of a laugh accompanied the twitch of his body. "Well, Big Bad Wolf, I do believe I found your ticklish spot." She said with a smile at him as she did it again and he grabbed her wrist with lightening speed stopping her.

"Took you long enough." He told her with a smile as he kissed her palm then let her hand go and placed his on her stomach. Knowing that the baby had been especially squirmy all night and morning Katie kept her eyes on Klaus's face incase he could feel her move. She was giving up hope that he would feel her this morning when the baby gave a hard kick right where his hand was resting and Klaus took in a sharp deep breath and his eyes widened. Katie smiled at him, though his eyes were on her stomach as a smile spread over his face. "It's no wonder your mother had a hard time sleeping if that is what she felt all night." He told their baby then turned his eyes to hers.

"If we don't change our sleeping position she'll be kicking you in your stomach all night too." She warned him with a smile.

"Our little princess can beat me up all she wants as long as she takes it easy on you." He told her with love in his eyes as he cupped her cheek in his hand. "Sooner or later we're going to have to pick a name for her."

"Do you have any in mind?" she asked as he moved his hand back to her stomach hoping to feel her again.

"The only child I've ever named was Marcellus." He answered.

"How did you find him…what made you want to take him in?" she asked wanting to know more since she really didn't know much about their history.

Instead of answering her with words he took her hand in his, threading their fingers together. _Klaus, Rebekah and Elijah, all wearing black, walked down a dirt road behind a horse drawn carriage with a coffin in the back of it. The sound a whip cracking in the background made Klaus look to the side to see a slave driver on a horse whipping a young almond skinned boy who looked to be around the age of nine or ten. The kid groaned in pain where most would have been crying and screaming out. All three Mikaelson siblings stopped and watched as the boy picked up and apple that had fallen from the trees around him and threw it at the horrid man. The man twirled the whip around getting ready to strike again when Klaus picked up a rock and threw it, hitting the slave driver right between his eyes. Dead instantly, the guy fell from the horse._

_Klaus walked over to the boy. "What is your name?" he asked a little too demandingly considering he was talking to an abused child._

"_Don't got one." The boy answered. "Momma wouldn't name me 'till I turned ten, incase the fever took me, then it took her."_

_Klaus kneeled down to be eye level with the boy who was sitting on his knees in the grass. "You're a survivor and survivors need names." The two of them just looked at each other for a second then Klaus narrowed his eyes in thought. "How about Marcellus?"_

"_Marcellus?" Marcel asked probably thinking it was a weird name._

"_It comes from Mars, the god of war." Klaus stood up. "And it means Little Warrior." He held his hand out for Marcel's. Marcel looked at the dead man behind him then back to Klaus and took his hand. Klaus smiled at him earning a smile from Marcel._

The memories faded from her minds eye. "He's a fighter, like you." she commented.

"And you." he replied as he slipped his hand over her cheek. "So do you have any names in mind for our child?"

"Not a single one. My mind draws a blank every time I think about naming her." she replied.

"We'll know it when we see her." he told her with a small smile that she returned as she took his hand off her face and kissed it. He pressed his lips to hers in a loving, tender kiss. "Mmm." She hummed as she pulled back to look at him. "I've been meaning to ask, did you tell Cami what happened to her brother?" he took a deep breath and let it out as his expression turned troubled and nodded. "I take it didn't go well."

"I told her that a witch hexed her brother and that the witch had been held accountable and punished by death and she slapped me." Katie bit her lips closed keeping her comment to herself. "Accused me of making her culpable in a revenge murder she didn't ask for. To say she was livid would be an understatement."

"I can't say that her reaction was unjustified. She's human, she sees death different than us. I know you've just been trying to help her, but sometimes when we're trying to help people by making them forget and rest easy we only hurt them more in the long run." He gave her a look that asked what experience she was speaking of. "Damon compelled Jeremy to forget that he'd seen his girlfriend Vicki get staked and made him think she simply moved away and that he was better off without her. Jeremy later told Damon that he felt like there was a hole inside him. His pursuit of figuring out what was missing only led him back to the truth and back into the supernatural world." She explained. "Sometimes human's are just meant to get mixed into our world." She shrugged. "Take me for example. In my lives I had a witch for a best friend and vampires and werewolves for lovers. Some things are just meant to be."

"Do you still want to meet her?" he asked and Katie nodded. A second later he looked down at his hand that had moved to rest on her stomach. "Our princess is calm." He whispered. "You should get some sleep while she is. You could use it."

"Mkay." Katie sighed. He kissed her then left her to her catnap.


	44. Chapter 44

**Phoenix Rising**

**Chapter 44**

_Dear Journal,_

_I once wrote that after I got Hannah's memories, that I didn't feel any different, but that was before I remembered everything. But I've become a weird combination of Hannah and Katie. I'm someone who has been molded and shaped by both of my lives and everything that's happened since the two lives merged._

_With this realization came the fact that I don't feel my age of nineteen. I died at thirty years old the first time, now I'm in an eighteen year old body, have lived this life for nineteen years and I am slowly turning human. So I guess I should feel forty-nine, right? Nope, if anything I feel somewhere around twenty-five, that or I'm just immature for forty-nine. Lol._

_How is it, slowly turning human you ask? Not fun. I didn't like being a vampire at first, blood bags felt like a drag on my day, like having to remember to take a chill pill three times daily and hope it was enough to keep me from murdering anyone. On top of that, heightened emotions are a pain in the ass. As a human I knew how to be in control of them, how to push them aside and get on with my life, but vamp emotions ere a whole different thing. Once I came to terms with what I was I no longer missed being a human. I liked the strength that came with vampirism. And now…I'm no longer strong, I no longer crave blood even though I still need it just like I need normal food. I'm not fast. I can't protect myself anymore, not when my enemies are so much stronger._

_I wake up every morning wondering if today is the day that I lose my last few vampire traits…if today is the day that does me in… My life is yet again one big, proverbial question mark and I don't blame anyone because there is no one to blame. Life just happens and as much as I hate witches and nature, they are right. Life has to be balanced. It would be unbalanced for me, a vampire who gave up the right to have kids as soon as I took my first sip of blood, to have a baby without there being any consequences. If turning human is the price I have to pay for having a child, then I'll pay it._

_It goes without saying that I love this little girl so much already and I haven't even seen her little face. No matter what happens I will give my child, my little girl the life that I didn't have. She will not grow up asking herself the same questions I did. She will not wonder if today is the day her parental figure removes her from the earth, if her parents loved her at all. She will know that we love her and we want her. She will not be the cast off that her parents were._

_Then there is this whole thing with Elijah. He has openly admitted to still having feelings for me and as flattered as I am to be told I'm not the type of woman a man simply gets over, I wish he would. If he doesn't let me go he will constantly be a wedge between me and Klaus, rather Klaus believes that I'm over him or not. And I am over him. After our link broke I did still have feelings for him. I looked into his pretty brown eyes and felt the same as when the link was intact, just not was intensely. But now, I've fallen in love with Klaus and in doing so, truly let Elijah go. I still love him, I'll always love him, but I don't want him. Klaus is the one that makes me happy to be alive. It's his blue eyes that I want to see when I wake up, his hands I want touching me and protecting me. Klaus has never hurt me and I truly believe he never will. He cared about me before we were even intimate. After Elijah left and I was at my lowest it wasn't Elijah or Damon or any of my friends that texted me every day just to ask how I was doing. It was Klaus. We were friends before we were lovers. We weren't pushed toward each other by circumstances like Elijah and I, or Damon and I. I didn't choose him for the life he could give me like I did Tyler. We chose each other and no one, nothing, made us._

_With that being said there is still so much we don't know about each other. There are so many unexplored areas of our relationship, because we have to keep it a secret here. I long for the day that we can do something as simple as walk down the sidewalk together or go on a date to an actual restaurant and eat food that wasn't cooked by me. I'm just tired of feeling tied down, not by Klaus or the baby, but life and the circumstances it has pushed on us. I-"_

"Are you writing an entire book, Luv?" Klaus's sleepy voice made her turn to see him half way sitting up looking at her where she sat at the table in the room with a lamp on writing in her journal.

"Maybe." She told him quietly. "Is the light bothering you?" It was the middle of the night, but he had been dead asleep and only pulled her back into him once when she tried to leave the bed.

"No." he answered as he slid from the bed. Her eyes followed him, taking in his torso, covered by a grey wife beater, as he pulled the other chair at the table out and sat down. His eyes looked at the two pages covered in her neatly written words then flipped back in the book to find that she had written a six page entry. Lately her entries had been no more than a small paragraph. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah I just couldn't sleep." She sighed and closed the book then sat down the pen.

"Do I need to give my little princess a firm talking to?" he asked with a glace at her stomach and Katie shook her head no. "Perhaps I don't offer you my ear enough." He cut his eyes over at the book.

A small smile pulled at one side of her lips as she shook her head. "I know I have your ear when I need it."

"Then what's with the massive journal entry?" he asked curiously.

"I woke up with all these thought flying through my head. You looked peaceful so I decided to write it all down instead of waking you up in the middle of the night just to talk." She explained. "Besides, sometimes it's easier to write things down than is it to say them out loud."

"May I?" he asked with a motion at the book and she shook her head no. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head questioningly.

"I know you've read my journal before, but that was before there was anything about you in it." she told him honestly.

"Now I want to read it even more." He told her with a small smile. "But I won't."

"Thank you." she told him as she grabbed the book and stood from the table. He watched her backside, covered by a pair of black cotton pajama pants, as she walked over to her bedside table and put the journal into the top drawer. Then, when she turned around and walked back over to him, he drank in her chest covered only by the tank top that matched her pants with white lace accents on the v of the neck. She walked over to him, wrapped her arm around his shoulders and sat sideways in his lap. "Just because I can't sleep doesn't mean you're not allowed to." She told him as she slipped her hand down his wife beater covered chest.

"A thousand years on this earth and my sleep has never been dependant upon another." He started as he slipped his hand over her stomach. "But without you next to me I can't sleep."

She smiled and rolled her eyes not believing him. "I've been awake for like, an hour."

"And I woke the moment you left the bed." he told her.

She leaned down and caught his lips with hers as she slipped her hand over his cheek. "Come on." She slipped from his lap and grabbed his hand, leading him back to the bed where they snuggled into one another and slipped back off to sleep.

* * *

Katie, Klaus and Rebekah sat around the small dining table, a tray of fresh fruit and croissants sat on a tray off to the side where Klaus stood bleeding a woman's wrist into three juice glasses. The open windows and patio doors let in the cool October breeze that blew the curtains and table cloths. Rebekah held a cup of tea in her hand while Katie held a warm cup of coffee close to her lips, breathing in it's energizing scent. The siblings also had a wine glass of orange juice in next to their empty plates, but Katie skipped the orange juice and instead had some of the fresh fruit and a croissant on the plate in front of her.

"Have you spoken to our good friend Marcel today?" Klaus asked Rebekah looking up from the woman's wrist.

"No, should I have?" Rebekah asked after swallowing a sip of tea.

"Well, he's been mysteriously silent, avoiding me some might say." Klaus answered. "I thought, perhaps, he may have whispered reasons into your ear along with all those sweet nothings."

"If I see him I'll be sure to ask if he's still sore at you." Rebekah told him with a glare as the girls watched him set a juice glass of blood beside each of their plates.

"Let me give a voice to that look in your eyes." he told her as he took his seat on the other side of Katie. "My saintly, noble brother lies writhing in agony in the bayou, victim of my bastard brother's bite when just one or two drops of his blood would ease his pain." He spoke for Rebekah.

Katie took a sip of her coffee then sat it down and picked off a piece of her croissant. She popped it into her mouth, watching the two siblings interact. "On the contrary, Nik, I am simply enjoying my brekkie waiting for Elijah's healthy return." Rebekah told him making Katie narrow an eye at her suspiciously.

"Oh, come on Rebekah you've been giving me the devil's eye all morning. Out with it." Klaus told her with a point of his finger.

"Perhaps I'm concerned that if I voice my opinion about what you did to Elijah, I will end up on the wrong side of your toxic hybrid teeth." Rebekah answered as Katie picked her coffee back up.

Klaus slapped the table making dishes rattle and pointed his finger at her. "Poppycock." The word leaving his mouth made Katie smirk behind her coffee cup. "I would never bite you." Rebekah rolled her eyes and took a drink of her tea. "Elijah made some very offensive accusations about my intentions towards my child. He deserves a day or two of discomfort." He said talking with his hands then looked down at his glass of blood. "Besides you know my preferred method of punishment for your indiscretions is the dagger."

Rebekah just smiled making Klaus give her a questioning look before she stood up and put her hands on the table, leaning over it to look at him. "There is something fundamentally wrong with you." Katie watched Klaus's face fall as Rebekah went to the front door and left.

When Katie was sure that Rebekah was out of ear shot she spoke up. "She knows that I have the daggers, but she doesn't' know you know." He looked at her out of the corners of his eyes seeing a somewhat ashamed look on her face as she sat her coffee down on the table.

"If she knows you have the daggers she will think she can do as she pleases." He told her in a hard voice.

"And that's a bad thing because?" Katie drawled then picked up a triangle of watermelon and bit the point off it.

"Because she will-"

"What, plot your demise?" Katie asked and he closed his mouth and gave her a tilted head glare. "If she tries to kill you then I will consider it a lesson learned." she took another bite and chewed it as she took in the angry look in his eyes.

"And what lesson would you have learned?" he asked as he grabbed his glass of blood and took a drink.

"To keep my mouth shut and say out of the Mikaelson family's business." She answered then grabbed another croissant and tore a piece off of it.

"You are a part of the Mikaelson family now, love." He told her. "Our business is your business."

She shook her head and sat down the croissant. "No I'm not. Not really. I know a lot about your family, because I've been…involved, in it for a long time now. But I don't know nearly enough to consider myself a part of it, to know how you all handle each other or why you all do the terrible things to each other that you do." She explained calmly. She wasn't mad or being judgmental just honest. "It's going to take a while before I get the feel of the Mikaelson rhythm, find my place and figure out when to open my mouth and when to take a step back." she told him honestly.

"We are both in uncharted territory." He said with a motion of his hand. "Other than Marcellus I have never allowed an outsider into our family, especially not a girlfriend of mine. Though you are more than a girlfriend." He pointed out with a look at her stomach.

She couldn't help cracking a smile considering that she was in fact more than a girlfriend, but no where near the next normal step of fiancé or wife. A shotgun wedding didn't seem necessary for vampires who couldn't care less about social norms. She pushed any idea's of proposals and weddings out of her head because they were ridiculous then got back on topic. "Are you angry?"

"A little, yes." He answered and she started chewing on her bottom lip. She hated that she'd angered him and wrong him without meaning to. "What made you feel the need to disclose that information to her?"

"I had just learned that you'd killed every boyfriend she'd ever had, that when she started falling for Marcel you couldn't make yourself kill him so you daggered her. She wanted to go to Marcel in an attempt to get Elijah back, but she feared you and your daggers." She explained. "So I told her that I had hidden the daggers from you."

He was quiet for a moment, only making her that much more nervous. "Did you tell her because you felt sorry for her or because you wanted Elijah back too?"

Katie took in a deep breath and let it out with flared nostrils. "Both." She answered honestly and his face hardened. "But you knew that already. How many times am I going to have to tell you that I don't want him before you truly believe me?"

"I do believe you." he told her as the hard look faded from his face.

"Then why do you keep questioning me when it comes to him?" she asked getting aggravated. Then she realized that for once she wasn't the insecure one, he was because even though he had told her he loved her weeks had passed and she still hadn't said it back. He didn't doubt the fact that she didn't love Elijah. He doubted that she could ever love him. "Forget I asked." She no longer had an apatite so she pushed her plate away and stood up. "I regret telling Rebekah about the daggers, okay?" She placed her hand on her stomach. "If there's anything I can do to help clean up whatever mess I've possibly created let me know." She turned to walk off.

"Katie." When she turned around he picked up her untouched glass of blood and held it out to her. "You need to keep your strength up."

She took the glass from him and let him see her take a sip. The thick red liquid tasted different, metallic, the way blood would taste to a human, but she kept the look off of her face until her back was turned then went into the kitchen and poured the blood down the drain. She hadn't been craving it for a few days now so it was no surprise that she no longer needed to drink it, but it was still just one more depressing step closer to being human.

Curious if anything else had changed she went to her and Klaus's room and tested if she still healed fast and still burned in the sun. For the last test she walked over to the full length mirror in the room and watched as the veins appeared under her eyes filling the whites with blood, but as she ran her tongue across her teeth, she didn't feel her fangs. "God this is weird." She sighed as she pushed the blood back.

* * *

Katie was taking a load of laundry out of the dryer when she heard a knock at the door and she froze. When they knocked again she walked as silently as she could to the door and peeked out of the window beside the door to see a woman with blond hair, green doe eyes and a strong yet feminine jaw line. Having a good idea who she was Katie pulled out her phone and called Klaus. "If you are calling about a visitor I'm ninety percent sure it's Cami." He said instead of hello.

"Tall, blond, bright green doe eyes?" Katie asked.

"That's her." he told her flatly.

"Thank you." she told him sincerely.

"You're welcome." He replied sounding distracted and Cami knocked again. "Now answer the door before she leaves." He hung up.

Katie tucked her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans as she pulled the door open and plastered on a smile. "Hi."

"Hi." Cami echoed back. "I'm guessing you're Katie."

"That's me." Katie answered awkwardly.

"Klaus has compelled me to keep you company while he's out." Cami informed her.

Katie's smile fell at Cami's harsh tone and sarcastic smile. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to." Katie told her in defeat.

"His compulsion says otherwise." Cami told her in aggravation.

"Then I guess I should invite you in." Katie sighed as she stepped aside and waved Cami in. She followed Katie to the parlor and sat down in the chair next to the decanter table while Katie sat on the couch. "I wish he would have just asked you if you wanted to meet me instead of compelling you to." Katie told her feeling bad about Klaus compelling Cami so much.

"He did and I told him that I didn't want to get to know anyone that would willingly align themselves with him." Cami answered with a look of disgust on her face. "He compelled me anyway."

In that moment Katie wanted nothing more than to crawl under a rock somewhere and stay there, but she wasn't about to let Cami see that. So she held her head high. "What exactly did he compel you to do?"

"He said that I was to come here and do what I do best, talk, listen and advise." She told her with a hard expression.

"I know you think he's a monster and you're pissed at him for the death of the witch that hexed your brother, but-"

"He told you about that?" she asked a little shocked.

"He tells me everything. Plus he butt dialed me when he was compelling you to stop having nightmares." Katie answered. "I don't like that he did that, by the way."

"But the rest of the mind control you're fine with." Cami said with an unbelieving shake of her head.

"Did he tell you that there was more than one reason why he and Elijah saw to the death of that witch?" Katie asked staying on topic. Cami shook her head no. "She also put a hex on me, but it wasn't a hex to make me go mad. She tried to make me miscarry. Had Elijah not gotten Davina to help me it would have worked. Agnes wasn't a good person. She not only hurt me, my baby and your brother, but she participated in a ritual that involved sixteen year old girls getting their throats slit. She was evil."

"I don't believe in evil as a diagnosis." Cami argued sounding now like the physiologist she was.

"You may not, but I do. I've seen it, hell I was raised by it, twice." Katie replied. "Any way my point is, that Klaus had good intentions by telling you what happened to Sean and that the witch responsible was dead."

"Yeah, well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Cami popped off.

"That's oddly fitting for the crap day I've had." Katie sighed, thinking about her conversation with Klaus this morning.

"It's only two in the afternoon and Klaus said you've been alone most of the day." Cami observed with a look at the clock.

"Days tend to be long when you live in a house that you can't leave and share with original vampires." Katie sighed.

"How long has it been since you've left this house?" Cami asked curiously.

"Of my own accord?" Katie asked rhetorically. "Months."

"That's not healthy." Cami informed her.

"It's healthier than the alternative." Katie countered. "If I leave this house I'll have at least three different targets on my back, or…rather on my stomach." Katie frowned and scratched her forehead. "But I didn't ask Klaus to invite you here so we could talk about me."

"Yet I'm compelled to do so. So let's talk more about Klaus." Katie couldn't help but wonder why Cami wanted to talk about Klaus. If it was because she was interested in him from a professional stand point or a personal one. "Why are you with a guy like him?" she asked with a shake of her head.

"There's a lot of reasons I'm with him." Katie stated. "On the surface he's hateful, paranoid and angry at the world. But under that, under the monster that people see there's just a man. A man that… when he cares for someone, he cares whole heartedly. So when the people he cares for hurt him, they hurt him deeply. And he was never taught how to deal with that, how to react appropriately when he gets hurt by someone. So the backlash, the hate he aims at the people that hurt him, is just as powerful as his love." She explained. "So on top of a lot of other reasons, I'm with him because he has shown me a love like I've never felt before."

"But don't you worry that his love will flip like you just said he has a tendency to do?" Cami asked.

"Honestly?" Katie asked. "No, but that's doesn't mean he's never gotten mad at me. We actually kind of had a fight this morning."

"What about?" Cami asked and Katie made a face that said she didn't know if she should tell her or not. "Come on, I'll just forget all of this as soon as I leave anyway."

"There are these daggers that can temporarily desiccate his siblings. I took them and hid them from him. He found them, of course, because I suck at hiding things, but he wasn't mad about it. What he was mad about, however, was the fact that I told Rebekah he didn't have them." Katie explained. "That wouldn't be a bad thing if Rebekah wasn't pissed at Klaus. He bit Elijah and left him in the woods to deal with the fever and hallucinations that the venom in his bite injected into Elijah's bloodstream. The Mikaelson's have really bad tempers and do really bad things to one another when they're pissed. So if Rebekah knows that there's no possibility of Klaus daggering her there is no telling what she will try to do to him in retaliation."

"I will never get used to this." Cami said with a shake of her head. "Klaus has a poisonous bite?" she asked curiously.

"Yeah, but it only affects vampires." Katie waved her off. "It's lethal to regular vampires, but it just makes original vampires sick for a little while."

"Interesting." Cami commented as she leaned forward and put her elbow on her knee and propped her chin up on her hand.

"Na, the interesting part is that his blood is the antidote to werewolf slash hybrid bites." Katie pointed out.

"Huh." Cami huffed then blinked out of her thoughts and shook her head. "So he's mad at you because you basically gave Rebekah free rein?" she asked as she sat up straight.

"Yep." Katie nodded. "And I feel…stuck, because there's noting I can do to fix my mistake in this condition." She motioned to her stomach. "I know he loves me, but I don't know if he'll forgive me. Things were up in the air when he left."

"Okay, I've heard _him_ say that he loves you and I've heard _you_ say that he loves you, but do you love him?" she asked.

"Way to get personal." Katie said as she sat up straighter on the couch. Cami dead panned. "I do, but it's…complicated."

"And the complication is….?" Cami asked.

"So many questions." Katie complained.

"It's what I do." Cami said with a closed lipped smile. "So stop stalling and answer the question."

Katie sighed out an aggravated growl. "At first I wasn't capable of falling in love with anyone and not only that, but after falling out of love with a man who fell in love with one of my best friends then getting "let go" by the man who was literally my soul mate, I didn't want love. I just wanted to have fun with someone I knew wouldn't hurt me."

"And that someone was Klaus." Cami guessed.

"Yep." Katie nodded. "I think he thinks I'm either still un-capable of loving, that he is simply un-loveable, or that I'm lying to him about no longer being in love with said soul mate," Katie told her remembering part of their disagreement this morning," but…that's not the case. I've been able to love for a long time now, but for a while I was scared that if I fell in love with him I would just end up getting hurt again. Then I realized that I am in love with him and I don't care if I get hurt because he's worth it. But now…? Now I'm scared that I'll hurt him and he's the last person on this earth that I want to hurt. He's been hurt enough by people he care's about."

"How could you hurt him?" Cami asked curiously.

"Klaus is invincible." Katie started. "But me…? I'm getting weaker every day, I'm not supposed to be able to get pregnant and nature likes to keep a balance. So I'm turning human and it's happening faster than I thought it would. Just this morning I realized I no longer need to drink blood. It's only a matter of time before I no longer have to wear my daylight ring or heal quickly. I'll be human, vulnerable and it is a big possibility that I'll die. That someone will finally succeed in killing me to kill my baby. If I tell him I love him and then leave him…I'll only be hurting him."

"But don't you think leaving him with the unanswered question of, "Did she ever love me back?" would hurt him even more than knowing?" Cami asked with a frown.

Katie lifted her shoulders as she took in a deep breath the let in out in a heavy sigh. "I have no idea."

"You need to tell him." Cami told her. "It's not right to leave him guessing." Cami sat up in the chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

"I'll…take your advice into consideration." Katie told her no longer wanting to think about her and Klaus. "Enough about me." she said as she moved around on the couch to stretch her legs out across it. "Tell me about yourself. Have you always lived in New Orleans?"

"No. I only moved here to find out what happened to my brother." Cami answered.

"So now that you know what happened to your brother why don't you leave and get away from all of the crap going on in this city?" Katie asked.

"Because out side of this house, away from you or Klaus, I don't know what happened to my brother. I feel like I'm literally going insane, I have lost time and gaps in my memory." Cami answered.

Katie frowned. "I'm sorry. I knew he'd been compelling you and what he'd been compelling you to do, but I didn't know it was messing with you that bad."

Before Cami could say anything back Katie heard a horn honk outside. "Who was that?" Cami asked.

Katie went to the window and look out front to see Klaus getting out of his black land rover in the street lamp lit driveway. "Klaus is back." Katie said then turned back to see that Cami had stood up. "I know it wasn't exactly your decision to come here, but I'm still going to say thank you. I hope you don't think I'm too terrible of a person for someone who would willingly align themselves with Klaus."

"You're not that bad." She replied with a small smile as Klaus walked into the room. "Definitely nicer than him." Cami added with a glare at Klaus who stood in the entryway with his hands tucked behind his back.

"You are free to go." Klaus told Cami with a jerk of his head to the front door. Cami picked her bag up off the floor next to the chair she had been sitting in and headed out. "How'd it go?" he asked as he walked further into the room, but kept his hands tucked behind his back. Things were just as tense now as they were when he left this morning.

"Fine." She answered as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Pretty sure I gained a compelled shrink instead of a friend, but it was still better than sitting here by myself all day." She told him as she started to walk around him, but he gently grabbed her arm, stopping her from walking away from him.

She stopped and looked down at his hand on her arm. After a few seconds he let go of it to lightly grab her chin and lift it to look at his face. "I'm sorry." He told her genuinely.

"Me too." She replied, meaning it.

"Come here." he dropped his hand from her chin and placed it on the curve of her side.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest. "I hate fighting with you." she whispered.

He kissed the top of her head. "Is that what that was?" he asked.

"Well, it certainly wasn't us getting along." She sighed as she pulled back to look up at him. "Did you find out if Rebekah is plotting your demise?" she asked just wanting to get the air between then cleared.

"Yes." He answered with a nod of his head. "She and Marcel set a trap and I walked right into it."

"Yet here you are." Katie pointed out with a curious look.

"Would you like me to show you what happened?" he asked and she nodded.

He cupped her cheek in his hand. _"What if…one of you lot were to release me knowing I would be eternally in your debt? Oh I would pity those of you who dared to cross me." Klaus, standing in the middle of a courtyard of an older building, circled by a crowd of vampires appeared in her minds eye. "I can assure you, you're ends would be spectacular." Klaus turned from the curly haired, almond skinned vampire guy he was glaring at and held up a gold coin. "To borrow a trick from an old friend…" Katie could tell that Klaus was looking at Marcel and Rebekah who stood at the edge of the circle of people. "Whoever picks up this coin…gets to live." He tossed to coin onto the floor. "Now, which of you magnificent bastards wants to join me?"_

"_If anyone wants that coin," Marcel spoke up. "To pledge allegiance to Klaus, take it now. Go ahead. The choice is yours." when no one picked up the coin Marcel flicked an eyebrow at Klaus with a smirk. "Take him."_

_Two vampires charged at Klaus, but were easily taken down. Klaus held his arms out to the side as a hum of a growl rattled his throat._ Katie couldn't help but think about how much she liked the sound of that growl. _Marcel made a motion with his hands and two men behind Klaus threw chains, wrapping them around Klaus's wrist then jerked on them pulling Klaus backwards. Klaus landed on his back, but quickly whooshed up onto his feet awomanl came at him with a stake but he counter attacked it and hit her in her stomach knocking her back only for another guy to step into her place. He landed two punches to Klaus's face before Klaus punched him sending him flying back before a hulking guy punched Klaus in the face knocking him onto his back. The chains were still on his wrists as the crowd of vampires closed in on him, beating him mercilessly._

_Someone ran the chains through loops on each side of the arching stone entryway and pulled Klaus's arms up while he stood on his knees on the ground. The curly haired guy that Klaus had been glaring at while talking before grabbed his chin and stabbed him before he punched him in the face. Klaus let his head hang, looking defeated for a few seconds before a growl similar to the one earlier, but more pissed off left him as he looked up. His irises glowed amber while the dark veins under his eyes filled the whites with blood. He glared right at Marcel and Rebekah who had started closing in on him thinking he was close to defeat, but seeing his hybrid face made the small smile that was on Rebekah's face fall as the dagger she held in her hand slipped out of it and to the floor. Marcel too realized the fight wasn't over._

_Klaus jerked down on the chain sending the guys holding each end flying into the wall and after that came a blood bath of Klaus taking down men. "Marcel! Come and finish this!" he yelled out, blood dripping down his chin before he went back to taking down his enemies. Katie thought she saw a flash of her father's face in the fight, but she wasn't sure._

_After a few more seconds Marcel yelled. "Enough!" and the vampires backed off. Klaus watched as Marcel picked up the coin._

"_Well, well, well. The great Marcel, self-proclaimed king of New Orleans, bowing before me." Klaus said as he walked over to where Marcel was kneeling with the coin in his hand._

"_There." Marcel threw the coin at Klaus's feet. "I hereby pledge my allegiance to you. You have the keys to my kingdom. It's yours." A smile took over Klaus's blood splattered face._ When he took his hand from her face Katie opened her eyes to see that same smile on his now clean face.

"So you've had a hell of a day." Katie said not knowing what else to say. "But it seems like you've gotten what you've been wanting. You're kingdom back, or at least the castle."

"Yes I did." He told her not losing his smile. "All thanks to you." he told her as he slipped his hand over the side of her neck and looked her in the eyes.

"Me? What did I do?" she asked happy, but confused.

"Had you not told Rebekah about the daggers, she never would have conspired with Marcel. I never would have been led into that trap by Joshua…" he told her then narrowed his eyes at her. "Do you see where this is going?"

"Yeah, but it's not like I knew that a good thing would come from me opening my big mouth." She told him with a shake of her head. "I can't take credit for this when it could have turned out much worse. What if Rebekah would have had the white oak stake and used it against you?"

"Well that scenario is impossible because I have the stake hidden where no one will ever find it." he told her and she breathed out a sigh of relief and rested her head on his chest. "That is incredibly good to know."

"So, are you ready for a change of scenery?" he asked with a smirk on his face.

"God yes." She answered. "When is moving day?"

"We'll have to give Marcel sufficient time to get his things out of our new living quarters. So how about tomorrow?" he asked.

She flashed him a fifty watt smile before she realized something. "Will we be sharing a house with Marcel and his inner circle?"

"Yes, sadly we will not have the place to ourselves." He replied noticing the look of realization on her face. "This upsets you?"

"No, I welcome new faces, even if they probably won't like me." she said with a shake of her head as she moved to sit down on the arm of the sofa and stared at the floor. "It's just…I'm going to be living under the same roof as my father for the first time in nine years." she answered and looked up at him. "That is if he's still alive after ambushing you earlier today. I saw a flash of his face earlier, but that was it."

"He's still alive." He told her as he walked over to her and slipped his hands over her shoulders. "Bitten, but alive." She blinked at him not knowing how to feel about the fact that he'd bitten her father. "I do apologize and it goes without saying that I'll heal him if you want me to."

"I do." She answered without a second thought. "He's a dick for leaving me with Grandfather, but he's still my family and our daughter's grandfather." She shrugged.

Klaus held his hand out to her and she took it without question. "Then let's go heal him."

She gave him a smile as she stood up and let go of his hand to wrap her arms around his thin waist. "You're awesome."

"I blame you." he popped off making her laugh.

* * *

Marcel led Katie and Klaus to Bradley's room and knocked before he opened the door and let them into the room to see Bradley lying on his simple bed, shivering while beads of sweat slipped down his forehead. The curly haired guy that stabbed and punched Klaus stood on the far side of Bradley's bed along with a few other vampires. "Scarlett." Bradley sighed when his eyes landed on his daughter. "You're not really here." he groaned, already thinking he was hallucinating.

Katie walked over to the bed and sat down beside him. "I am really here." she argued. "You're not hallucinating." She picked his hand up in hers.

"You're probably right. If I was hallucinating he wouldn't be here with you." he said with a jerk of his chin at Klaus.

"I know you don't like him, but he's here to help." She told her father then looked over her shoulder to see Klaus already holding his bleeding fist over a clear glass. "Will you let him?"

Bradley looked at Marcel who stood at the foot of the bed. Marcel gave him a nod and Katie looked back at Bradley. "Yeah." He told her with a weak nod and Katie turned her eyes to Klaus who handed her the glass and she let go of her fathers hand, put the glass in it then helped him move it to his lips and drink.

When the glass was empty she sat it on the nightstand. "Better?" Katie asked.

Bradley nodded then sat up in the bed and looked at Marcel and the other vampires. "Give me a moment alone with my daughter?"

"Of course." Marcel told him then looked at Klaus who set his hand on Katie's shoulder.

She stood up and turned to him. "I'll be fine." She assured him so he nodded and left with Marcel and the others.

"So it's true?" Bradley asked as he got up from the bed and walked over to the few bottles of alcohol that sat on top of his dresser and poured himself a glass of whiskey. "You're really pregnant…with a hybrid baby."

Katie walked over to the windowed double doors that led out onto the balcony. "It's true." She answered not looking at him but out the door.

"I don't know what to say." He told her with an unbelieving scoff.

"Say you don't hate me or my baby." Katie said as she turned to look at him, a million thoughts and emotions flying through her head.

"Of course I don't hate you." he told her as he crossed the room and pulled her into a hug that she couldn't make herself return. He pulled back, holding her by her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "You are my _daughter_, Scarlett. Reincarnation or not you are my family and your baby is my grandchild. I love both of you. I don't like your choice in men, but as much as I want to hop into the role of father figure I think we can both agree it's a little late for that."

"Yeah, just a little." Katie told him with a sad smile as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"All I ask is you allow me to be a part of your life as well as my grandchild's." He told her with a defeated looking shrug.

"I'd like that." she told him with nod. Bradley walked past her and opened the doors and stepped out onto the balcony resting his arms on the wrought iron railing. "So how much do you know about me and my pregnancy?" Katie asked as she stepped out to stand beside him.

"Tyler Lockwood pretty much told us everything. The baby can sire hybrids, your slowly becoming human…all that." he answered. "He's a chip off the old block." Katie sadly couldn't disagree with him on that one.

"You've spoken to Tyler?" she asked with wide eyes.

"You didn't know?" her father asked with a frown. "He came to Marcel and tried to rally all of us into killing your baby." He told her. "Rebekah talked Marcel into ambushing Klaus instead."

"Where is Tyler now?" Katie asked panicking a little.

"Last I heard Rebekah and Marcel put him in the garden." He answered seeing her fear. "He won't be getting out for a long time."

Katie breathed out a sigh of relief. "Good." Things fell silent between them for a few seconds before Katie said, "It's a girl, by the way." Her father looked up at her from the quiet street below knowing how much weight the news of a baby girl meant for both of them.

Bradley was opening his mouth to say something when they heard a knock on the door and turned to see Marcel and Klaus walk in. "Ready to go?" Klaus asked and Katie nodded.

She walked over to Klaus who wrapped his arm around her waist as she turned back to look at her father. "I'll see you later."

"I look forward to it." he told her with a nod then watched her and Klaus leave while Marcel stayed behind.

* * *

I take it went well with your father?" Klaus asked from where he sat in the driver's seat of his land rover.

"It did. Better than I thought it would." She answered. "He understands that his chance to be my father has passed, but he wants to be a family."

"And what do you want?" he asked with a glance over at her.

"I want to give it a chance." She shrugged. "So what are you going to do about your family?" Katie asked with a look down at the silver dagger that sat on the console between them. She didn't think he would use it on one of them, but she also knew history had a way of repeating itself.

"I'm going to let them see me hand the dagger over to you." he answered simply.

* * *

The next morning Katie sat in an arm chair in the parlor of the plantation house, playing on her phone while Klaus looked out the window. When she heard a car pull up outside she put her phone away and moved to look out the window with Klaus. She saw Elijah sitting a car driven by a brunette woman. "Is that Hayley?" Katie asked.

"It seems Elijah made a friend in the bayou." Klaus confirmed while fiddling with the dagger in his hands.

"I'm going to go pack a few things." She told him eager to get away from Elijah who was walking toward the front door.

She listened to them while she packed her bag. "Elijah's home and there's only one dagger. Which one of us will you be punishing today?" she heard Rebekah, who had been back for a while, but was avoiding them, ask.

"I contemplated a game of eeny meeny miny moe." She heard Klaus say then the whoosh of one of them vamp speeding. "Katie gave you a taste of freedom from me and my daggers and you used the freedom to betray me. My own sister."

"Niklaus, don't you dare." Elijah spoke up so she assumed Klaus was threatening Rebekah with the dagger.

"Well perhaps it should be you, Brother, clinging to your feelings for Katie, trying to steal my girlfriend and child with every futile attempt you make to color me the lesser brother in her eyes." Klaus said making Katie frown to herself.

"This has nothing to do with Katie." Elijah told him, his voice stiff.

"This has everything to do with her!" Klaus yelled.

"She has done nothing but reject you since your link was broken. Yet you can't seem to let her go. I know the two of you talked about adopting a child together. So understand this, Brother, my child, my _blood_ will not grow up to call you father." Klaus told him. Katie couldn't help but feel partially responsible for Klaus's resentment for Elijah.

"Is that what this is?" Rebekah asked. "You are once again worried that you will be left behind? Has history taught you nothing? We don't abandon you, Nik. You drive us away."

"Is that so?" Klaus asked as Katie finished packing and tossed the strap of the bag over her shoulder. "What have I done lately other than cooperate? I bow down to you, Brother, to make up for daggering you." Katie walked up and leaned on the frame of the archway behind Rebekah and Elijah, watching as Klaus yelled at his siblings while waving the dagger around. "I looked the other way, sister, while you repeat the same cycle with Marcel, falling again for a man you shouldn't be with. While he controls the empire that we built, that he took!" the tears that slipped down Klaus's cheeks made Katie's eyes water. "Now, I make no excuses for past sins, but in the one moment when you two could have chosen to stand by me, to believe in me and believe my intentions for my own child were pure, you chose to stand against me, to side with my enemies." Klaus walked over to look Elijah in the eyes. "I wanted our home back. Now I have it." Katie walked into the room to stand a little ways behind Klaus, letting Rebekah and Elijah see the packed bag on her shoulder. "So Katie and I are going to live there. And the two of you…" Klaus pointed the dagger at Elijah who looked down at the tip of it sadly. "You can stay here together…and rot." Klaus flipped the dagger around and held it out to Elijah, but when Elijah moved to take it Klaus moved it out of his grasp and Elijah flinched thinking Klaus was about to stab him. Instead, Klaus held it out for Katie to take, like they had planned.

She walked up and took it from him then tucked it into her bag where the others were. She didn't know where she was going to hide them in her new home, but she was confident that she could find a good, secret new home for them. Klaus walked off, giving her a chance to speak her peace before they left. With him gone Elijah and Rebekah turned their eyes to her. "Both of you can trust me when I say these will not end up back in his hands."

"Of course, you have to keep your village dagger free." Rebekah told her with a snarky tone.

Katie just rolled her eyes and shook her head as she turned her eyes to Elijah. "Katie, please, do not leave with him, not when he's like this."

"And stay here with you two?" Katie asked with raised brows. "I'm on his side and I will always be on his side."

"Just like you swore to my mother that no one, not even she could tear you from _my _side?" he asked back. "How you promised Damon you'd always choose him?"

Her nostrils flared in anger before she realized that he had listened in on her and his mother and hadn't told her. Her face twisted in disgust. "Damon pushed me away and _you_ let your mother tear me from your side." She told him with a shake of her head. "So let me rephrase, I will be on his side until _he_ decides that he no longer wants me to be. I can only hope and pray that day never comes." She told him with a frown. "And you know, for someone so sure that this baby and I could be his salvation you sure do lack faith in us."

She turned her eyes to Rebekah. "I take it by your snarky tone that you think I lied to you about the daggers. That I set you up, and stabbed you in the back. I didn't. Believe me. Don't believe me. I don't care either way." She looked at Elijah as she pushed the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder, walked past him and met Klaus where he was waiting for her at the open passenger door of his Land Rover.

**A/N:** Sorry it took so long to get this posted…writers block is a pain in the rear.


	45. Chapter 45

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 45**

"Last stop of the tour…" Klaus said as he pushed a door open and motioned Katie inside. "Our living quarters." He shut the door behind her. "I know it's a bit bare at the moment, but we can redecorate it how ever you like."

"In case you couldn't tell by my somewhat plain house in Mystic Falls, I'm not much on decorating. All I need to make a living space functional is a bed, wireless speakers, a desk, and you." she ticked the things off on her fingers then grabbed his shirt and pecked him on the lips.

"I don't want it to just be functional, I want you to feel at home here." he told her as he grabbed her shoulders and turned her around to look at the three rooms laid out in an L shape, all connected by square framed archways with two windows at the top and painted with white paint that was chipped and cracked. "Take a look around." The first room contained nothing but a white, wood framed fireplace. The second room contained a simple brown leather couch and a plain oval dark wood coffee table that sat adjacent to another fireplace that matched the one in the first room. The couch and table faced an exterior wall with an arched, windowed door with shutters that led out to a private balcony. A tall window sat on each side of the door.

The third room shared the exterior wall and had three windows. A dark wood bed was in the room with a brand new mattress still wrapped in plastic on it. Its high backed head board sat against the middle of the back wall. On the wall across from the windows was a door that led to a large walk in closet. To the right of the head board was another door that led to a luxurious master bathroom complete with a deep claw foot tub and glassed in shower with three different showerheads.

"These were my quarters." He told her from where he stood behind her with his arms wrapped around her waist and his chin on her shoulder. "I want to make them ours, but I will not know how to achieve that unless you tell me. Even if it's a simple suggestion like antique white furnishings and a canopy bed centered on a white plush rug."

"I really just threw out the first thing that came to me head." she said with a laugh. "You're the one that waved your magic wand and turned it into something out of a freaking Victorian fairy tale." She smiled and tilted her head to the side as he kissed her neck.

"So throw out some more ideas and I'll wave my wand again." He told her then stopped kissing her neck and she turned around to look at him.

She blew air through her lips as she looked around the room. "Okay."

"And before you start putting things for our little princess in this space I already have conjoining rooms elsewhere in the compound set asside to turn into a nursery for her and bedroom for us after she is born." He informed her making her give him a smile that said she was surprised, but delighted to hear that.

She laughed and shook her head getting back to the space at hand. "So…will one of these rooms be filled with your art supplies?"

"No, I have another place picked out for my art studio." He answered. "If you want we can find a place to turn into a studio for you."

"But I don't paint. Not good enough to have my own studio anyway." She said with a confused frown.

"A recording studio." He clarified.

"Oh." She said with a smile, flattered that he was thinking about her hobbies as well. "I'll think about it." she told him then turned her attention back to the space around them.

"Like I said before, I want a desk. I can write anywhere, but I've always done it better at a desk for some reason." She told him then looked out at the balcony. "Out there, maybe some comfy patio chairs or something. I like to read outside when I'm bored even if it's freezing out. Speaking of reading can we have my books that are in my room in Mystic Falls sent here?" Thinking about her belongings that got left behind for the first time in months her mind went into overdrive with questions. "And the painting you bought me on our first date? Is it possible to make a white bedroom suite look masculine? Oh my god shut me up before I have all my belongings back in Virginia moved here."

He laughed at her excitement. "You know...This _is_ you're new home. You can have what ever you want moved here. As far as white furniture being masculine, yes with the right colors and styles it can be. So if you want your furniture from your bedroom in my mansion moved here we can. But I was hoping to keep that as it is for a vacation home."

"A vacation home?" she asked with intrigue.

"Yes, I know you said you hate that town, but it is not only where you grew up in this life and where your friends are, but it's where I was born and raised." He told her as he placed his hands on her hips. "I know you miss your friends even if you haven't said so."

"I do, I just hope that they don't hate me for falling off the face of the earth." She told him sadly then brushed all thoughts of her abandoned friends from her mind with a blink and a shake of her head. "We can leave my bedroom there as it is." she told him getting back on topic. "And want to have my things from my house and my landscape painting sent here. The stuff in the basement of my house…all that family history crap, can stay there."

"Now we're getting somewhere." He told her with a smile as he walked into the bedroom and put her duffle on the bed.

"Isn't Mystic Falls also where you fell in love with Tatia?" she asked as she walked over and leaned on the archway into the bedroom simply because they had never talked about his past loves.

He sighed and gave her a frown. "I've been wondering when you were going to bring her up. You know, since you have a special hatred of doppelgangers." She walked over to him and set her hands on his chest as he grabbed her hips and pulled her close. "Tatia aside my interest in the Petrova doppelgangers has only ever been self serving."

"So you're immune to their _allure_?" Katie asked with distain in her voice and a roll of her eyes.

"Yes." He assured her.

"How many doppelgangers have there been anyway?" she couldn't stop herself from asking.

"As far as I know, three; Tatia, Katherine and Elena." He answered.

"And you were only ever intimate with Tatia?" Katie asked.

Klaus laughed and opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and looked down at the floor for a second. He still had a smirk on his face when he looked back up at her. "If you are asking if I, like my brother, have had sex with Katherine, the answer is no. I courted her to keep her close until I could find the moonstone, nothing more."

"And that's the truth? You're not just telling me that because you know I hate her?" she asked.

"It's the truth." He told her as he looked into her eyes and she could tell he wasn't lying to her.

"Good." She told him then moved around him and started taking things out of her duffle bag. "I was starting to think she had slept with the entire male vampire population."

When he turned around he could tell by the distant look on her face that something else was bothering her. "What is it, sweetheart?" he asked. Instead of answering with words she looked at him and let the blood flow to her eyes then pulled her lips back, showing him her lack of fangs. He cupped her chin in his hand looking at her normal teeth with a frown. "That's…strange."

"I don't need fangs if I no longer need to drink blood." She told him with a look down at the floor as she pushed the blood back. "It tastes like sour metal now."

"When did you notice this?" he asked looking worried as he always did when they noticed another change in her vampire state.

"Yesterday morning." She answered. "I would have told you, but things were already tense between us and I didn't want to add to it."

"At this rate you'll be human by the end of the month." He pointed out and she nodded. He closed his eyes with a sigh and pulled her into him, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

A knock on the door made them pull apart and walk over to it. Klaus pulled it open revealing Bradley. "I'm guessing you're not here to call on me." Klaus stepped aside and motioned Bradley in and over to Katie who was standing a little ways behind Klaus.

"Hi." Katie greeted him with an awkward smile.

"I was wondering if you would like to go out for lunch." Bradley told her with a look between her and Klaus.

"I would like that, but…I don't know if leaving the compound is a good idea." She drawled then looked behind her at Klaus.

"I believe you have made your point to the witches very clear." Klaus said. "Werewolves don't set foot in the quarter and I don't believe your father, or any of the other vampires in this city to be a threat to you or our child."

"Plus I know all of the witches that frequent the French quarter." Her father chipped in.

"Are you telling me that it's finally safe for me to see the city?" Katie asked with an excited smile at Klaus.

"Yes." He told her with a small smile and his hands tucked behind his back. "As long as you are with a trusted vampire and you stay away from the caldron I'm comfortable with it if you are."

"Who do you consider trusted?" Katie asked skeptically.

"Before I answer that question…" Klaus clapped his hand down on Bradley's shoulder and looked at him with a condescending smile, "Let's have a quick chat, shall we?" He steered him through the still open door of their quarters.

"The roles here seem oddly reversed, but okay." Katie said more to herself than Klaus as she shut the door behind them.

Katie was unpacking her duffle bag and hanging her clothes in the closet when she heard the door open and headed that way to see that Klaus and Bradley were back. "And the verdict is…?" she asked hopefully.

"Let's call this a trial run." Klaus told her. "Straight to the restaurant and strait back. If all goes well we'll discuss further outings. Sound fair?" he asked not wanting to make her think he was trying to control her.

"Sounds perfect." She said with a smile as she bounced on her toes then looked at her father. "Meet you in the court yard in twenty?" she asked and he gave her a nod and a smile then shut the door as he left her with Klaus. She turned and looked at Klaus with suspicious eyes.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You're trusting him? You don't trust people that haven't earned it, most of the time not even then. What's with the nice guy act?"

"Act? Little Phoenix, you wound me." he told her dramatically as he placed his hand over his heart. She smirked and gave him a look that told him to answer the question. "He is your father and yes he is loyal to Marcel, but I do not underestimate the bond of blood. I will always worry about you when you are out of my sight, but I will not let my misgivings keep you from giving your family a chance to heal." He told her seriously. "Besides, I saw how miserable you were cooped up in that plantation house. It is not my goal or my right to cage a Phoenix." He told her as he cupped her cheek in his hand. "Though, I urge you to never let your guard down."

"I won't." She told him practically bouncing with happiness as she bit her lips closed, keeping the words I love you from slipping off of her lips. Now wasn't the time to tell him, nor was randomly blurting it out, the right way to tell him. No, as long as she'd waited, it needed to be done romantically. Problem was…she sucked at romance. Instead of telling him she stood on her toes and caught his lips with hers. The kiss quickly turned heated and with a whoosh he picked her up wrapping one of her legs around him with his hand on her thigh. Even though he wanted to press her against the wall and take her right there, her ever growing belly wouldn't allow it. So he whooshed her over to the unmade bed instead.

* * *

"Klaus seems a little overprotective and controlling if you ask me." Bradley said from where he sat across the table from Katie, cutting the chicken fried stake on his plate.

"You see an over protective boyfriend trying to control his girlfriend, I see an appropriately protective father just trying to keep me and his child safe." Katie argued. "People have been threatening my life and my baby's since I sat foot in this city."

"I can't help but feel partially responsible. You wouldn't even be in this city had I not reached out to you." her father admitted.

"Yes, but had you not reached out to me I'd probably still be in Mystic Falls hating you and claiming that I had no blood family." She said as she pointed at him with her fork then stabbed a piece of lettuce. "I was starting to despise that town anyway, with it's stupid town council and the same judgmental faces I'd seen every day for the past nineteen years. If that bitch Carol Lockwood called me trash one more time I would have broken her uppity little neck."

"Oh, yeah, she was a bitch wasn't she?" He agreed and things fell quiet between them for a while as they ate and Katie got a little lost in thoughts of the past.

"So I have a question, maybe you can answer it. Carol always called me a piece of trash and Grandpa always called me a slut even though I wasn't. I never understood it. Can you shed some light on that?" Katie asked then took a bite of her salad.

"I hate to speak ill of your mother, but her reputation may have tainted yours. Before she and I married she was a bit…wild. A lot of people didn't even think you were my daughter." He explained.

"Really?" she asked unbelievingly then motioned between the two of them with her hand. "The resemblance is kind of uncanny. I even picked at my cuticles like you did."

"You remember that?" Bradley asked through a bite of his food.

"I forgot about it until Elijah poked around in my head and dug up old memories." She explained with a shrug then took the last bite of her salad.

Things fell quiet between again as she sipped on her tea and Bradley finished his stake and potatoes. He covered the bill then asked, "Ready to head back?"

"Actually I have a small request." She said as she held her fingers up in a pinching motion. "Do you know a good jewelry store nearby?"

"You didn't okay this with Klaus did you?" her father deadpanned.

"First, I don't take orders from him and he knows it. Second, I can't surprise him if he knows where I'm at 24/7." She replied ticking the things off on her fingers with a devious tone.

"You want to buy Klaus jewelry?" her father asked looking at her through narrowed eyes.

"A ring, yes." She answered.

"You're not going to propose to him are you?" Bradley asked knowing Kate had always been a bit of a free spirit like her mother.

Katie busted out laughing. "God no."

"As long as you don't let him rip my spine out through my throat for doing this then sure. There's a jeweler around the corner that I've used for years now."

* * *

"Good evening." the man standing behind the counter at the back of the store with glass cases here and there greeted her then noticed Bradley walk in behind her. "Oh, hey man, how's it going?" he asked as he walked over to them.

"Good." Bradley answered as he and the jeweler slapped their hands together in an over the top handshake. "Chad, this is my daughter, Scarlett."

"Actually I prefer to go by Katie these day's." she spoke up as she held her hand out to Chad. "Hi." She told him with a smile.

"Hi." He echoed back, returning her smile. "What can I do for ya?"

"I'm hoping to find a ring for my guy." Katie answered taking in the man. He was Caucasian, looked to be in his late thirties and wore a simple outfit of jeans and a black dress shirt. The thing that gave away his profession in Katie's opinion were the three gaudy rings on his hand and the diamond crusted eagle pendant that hung around his neck on a thick platinum chain.

"Alright. Do you have anything specific in mind? A certain metal type, certain gemstone?" he asked.

"Yeah, uh, I was thinking something simple. No gemstones. Maybe made of black tungsten." Katie threw out as a kicking off point.

"I think I have a few options for you." he motioned her over to a case of rings and after looking through them she found one she though Klaus would love.

"You're guy?" her father asked as they walked down the sidewalk on their way back to the compound.

"He's over a thousand years old, calling him my boyfriend feels kind of immature and silly." She defended herself.

* * *

She managed to hide the ring in its box in their living quarters before Klaus found her. "How'd it go?" Klaus asked as he placed his hands on her hips and pulled her into him.

"Smooth sailing." Katie answered as she placed her hands on his shoulders then slid them up to hold the sides of his neck.

"Good." He pecked her on the lips. "Are you feeling up to a dinner tonight here in the courtyard with Marcel and his closest comrades?"

"Sure." She answered then turned from him and walked over to the couch in the middle room and sat down. "What's it for?"

"Just a general get to know each other dinner." He shrugged as he stood in the archway facing her.

"The last time someone said we were having a general get to know each other dinner a dagger ended up in Elijah's back." she pointed out. "If anything other than friendly conversation and eating is going to happen tonight please give me a head's up."

"I plan on giving a speech to our new friends and to further rally them and convince them we have absolutely no plans on creating a hybrid army, I plan on asking Marcel's right hand man, Diego, to lead a wolf hunt." He told her with his hands tucked behind his back.

"I'm sorry, what?" she asked with a narrow eyed shake of her head as she stood up.

"How can I sire hybrids if there are no werewolves left in the bayou to turn?" he asked as if it were obvious.

"I _strongly_ disagree with that." she stated as she walked over to him.

"Why?" he asked curiously as he set his hands on her waist. "They tried to kill our child."

"Several reasons." She started and he guessed by the one finger she held up and the determined look on her face that she was about to go off on a rant. "_Tyler_ tried to kill me. As far as I know he's not part of their pack. The New Orleans werewolves didn't touch me and are there for innocent." He held up a second finger, "By needlessly killing those wolves you'll be asking for backlash and a fight we don't need right now." then a third finger, "And the main reason, our child will have the werewolf gene." She told him as she dropped her hand and placed it on her stomach. "If, God forbid, something happens to you and she triggers her gene I won't know how to help her. If you kill all the local werewolves who will we have to go to? We need them to be our ally's or at the very least on neutral ground with us."

Klaus sighed and gave her a smirk. "Okay."

"Okay what?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

"Okay, I will take your advice and not ask Diego to lead a wolf hunt." He answered.

"Not even so much as a rousting." She clarified as she grabbed his chin in her hand stubbornly.

"The werewolves are not to be touched or harassed." He confirmed as he took her hand off his face and kissed her palm. "Perhaps I should buy you a tiara." He told her as he dropped her hand and pulled her as close as her tummy would allow.

"Why?" she drawled momentarily forgetting that Klaus was the new _king_ of New Orleans.

"Because you are already stepping into the role of queen quite nicely." He told her as he whooshed them over to sit on the couch with her sitting sideways in his lap.

"Eh give me a week, I'm sure I'll screw it up somehow." She told him only half meaning it.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Stop it."

"So how formal is this dinner going to be?" she asked changing the subject. "I didn't exactly bring a lot of clothes."

"What you're wearing is fine." He answered as he took in her grey racer back tank top that was pulled a little tight across her stomach and dark wash distressed jeans. "You might want to wear a jacket though. It might be a bit chilly in the courtyard at night."

Katie slipped her hand over his that rested on her thigh and leaned her head on his shoulder. After a while of sitting in silence, both lost in their thoughts Klaus asked, "Sing for me?"

She smiled wondering what it was with the Mikaelson men liking her singing voice. The only difference between the two men was Elijah knew she was a bit shy when it came to her hidden talent and waited patiently for her to decide to sing for him. Klaus, on the other hand had no problem asking her to and she loved it and his tendency to push her outside her comfort zone. "What would you like to hear?" she asked as she picked her head up and looked at him.

"Write me something." He replied with a challenging tone.

"You're kidding." she looked at him with raised brows.

"Nope." He told her with a shake of his head.

"You know I can't just write something on demand right? I have to be inspired." She pointed out. "You're an artist, do you not need inspiration to pick up a brush and put paint to canvas?"

"So you need a muse?" he asked with a cocky look and she nodded. "You're mine most of the time. Can't I be yours?"

"I don't know, let's see." she replied then caught his lips with hers and he laughed into the kiss. She slipped from his lap, breaking the kiss when she stood up, then went to her still half packed bag and grabbed her journal and pen. He watched as she sat down on the other end of the couch, pulled her knees up, propped the book up on them then put pen to paper. As she got lost in her writing, Klaus grabbed a sketch pad and pencil from his bag he'd dropped at the foot of the bed and started drawing her. He finished before her and she glanced up to see him looking at her, lost in her delicate features that concentrated on the book. After a few minutes she looked up at him through her lashes and smirked. "You're staring."

"I'm admiring." He countered and she just smiled.

"Well, you can stop because I'm finished." She told him as she put the cap back on her pen and tossed it to the coffee table.

"Then let's hear it." he prompted with a come at me motion with his hand.

"You're lucky I like you so much." She told him with a playful glare and he gave her a look that told her 'I know'. Still not secure in her writing skills she turned her eyes to her journal and kept them there not daring to look up as she started singing. "Like every flower's got a field and the cloud's have got the rain. Like the night has got the stars and a fires got a flame. Like a moon has got the tide and the rivers got the sea. I've got you and you've got me." A small smile pulled at his lips as he listened to her sing the chorus. "Like a singer's got a song and a song has got a rhyme. Like I know you've got a smile when I can't get to mine. Like every soul has got a heart and a heart has got a beat. I've got you and you've got me. Oh, some things are guaranteed. Oh, some things will always be. Like I've got you and you've got me." she finished and snapped her journal shut.

When she looked up at him she saw him looking at her, admiring what he knew was his and no one could take from him. "I swear you are a siren."

"Oh yeah?" she asked with a smile as she set her journal on the coffee table and crawled across the couch to him. "Are you under my spell?"

"Very much so." He told her as he moved her around to straddle his lap. He noticed an odd look on her face and asked, "What's that face about?"

"I'm trying to think if there is a male, wolf, devilishly handsome variant of a siren." She answered.

He laughed at her odd thought process. "I don't sing."

"No, you growl." She pointed out as she slid her hands down his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. "And I swear it does things to me." he gave her a questioning side eye and smirk. "May I?" she asked as she held her hand in the air beside his head. He nodded and let her into his mind when she placed her fingertips to his temple. The two times he growled when fighting Marcel's men flashed through his head, telling him what she was talking about. When she took her hand off his head he gave her a suggestive smirk. "There's a reason I call you big bad wolf even though you're a hybrid. You're animalistic and I love it."

Love was clear in his eyes as he cupped her cheek in his hand and caught her lips with his in a tender but passionate kiss.

* * *

The courtyard was lit by chandeliers that Katie had failed to notice before and a dining table had been moved in for the occasion. Klaus sat at one end of the table and Katie at the other. Marcel sat to Klaus's left and Bradley sat at Katie's right and the rest of Marcel's inner circle took up the other seats at the table. When Klaus tapped his champagne glass, everyone looked at him and listened as he gave a toast to immortality. With a motion of his fingers waitresses and waiters came out and slit their wrists then held them over the bows that sat in front of each vampire. When the staff left, Klaus lifted his champagne glass again and looked at Katie. She had asked to hear exactly what he was going to say in his toast, not wanting any surprises what so ever. This part she suggested exchanging a certain exclusive word for a more inclusive one reminding him that he was the king but he wasn't the only one living in the kingdom of New Orleans. She was interested to see if he would take her advice. "To_ our_ city, to my home again." He gave her a smirk that she returned seeing that he took her advice. "May the blood never cease to flow…"

"And the party never end." Marcel finished as he raised his glass.

Katie didn't miss the shared look between Marcel and his right hand man Diego before the latter lifted his glass and said, "To New Orleans." Everyone else followed suit echoing Diego's words. Katie simply lifted her glass of sparkling white grape juice and sat it back down.

"I understand that some of you may have questions regarding the recent change in leadership. I invited you here tonight to assure you that you are not defeated. No, my intentions moving forward are to celebrate what we have. What Marcel, in fact, took…" Klaus said as he placed his hand on Marcel's should, "and built into this, a true community of vampires."

"What about her?" Diego asked with a point at the other end of the table to Katie. "Isn't she human or whatever?"

Klaus looked at Katie with a smirk, knowing she'd have something to say about his tone. "My name is Katie." She spoke up trying to remain confident under Diego's scrutinizing gaze. "Any questions you have about me, or for me, you can ask _me_. And yes, in approximately one months time I will be completely human."

As Katie spoke Klaus walked around the table and stood behind her. "Yes before Diego interrupted me I was going to say there is, one further matter I would like to address. As many of you know, Katie is carrying my child, but she is also my partner." That part of his speech was adlibbed, but she liked the fact that he called her his partner. It had a nice ring to it and was more mature than calling her his girlfriend, not that she didn't like him calling her his girlfriend when it was just the two of them.

When he slipped his hand over her shoulder she reached up and grabbed it. "Consequently I trust you will all show her the appropriate respect. However, I understand that some of you are concerned by this vicious rumor that I intend to use the blood of our child to create hybrids." Katie kept her hand on his and looked at her father then the rest of Marcel's men. "I assure you I do not." Klaus walked back around to his spot at the head of the table and lifted his glass. "So eat, drink and let the merriment begin." Klaus finished then took a drink from his glass and everyone followed suit.

Soon more staff came and replaced the bowls of blood with actual food. Thankfully the conversation picked up around the table and Bradley introduced Katie to the people sitting close to them.

"So I didn't see a ring on his finger." Bradley spoke up making Katie's eyes go big and she looked at Klaus to see him deep in conversation with Marcel.

"Will you shush before you ruin it?" Katie asked quietly making her father laugh. "I haven't found the right time to give it to him yet. I don't have the chance to be the romantic one very often and I don't want to screw it up."

"You're mother wasn't romantic either." He told her with a smirk.

"Really?" she asked not remembering much about her mother other than her teaching her how to play piano.

"She always tried way too hard and got all nervous and let her mouth run away with her." he told her and Katie realized then that she had also gotten a nervous habit from her mother. "My advice, don't think too hard about it. Go with the flow."

"Follow my heart and go with the flow. Could my parent's advice be anymore cliché?" Katie asked no one in particular with a shake of her head making her father laugh.

* * *

When the dinner was over Katie and Klaus retired to their quarters. When they walked in Katie noticed that dark blue panel curtains had been hung over the windows and the bed had been made with pail grey sheets, an admiral blue comforter and was turned down, all ready for them to slide between the clean sheets. Her bag that had been left on the bed was gone and she noticed the things that had been in it were placed in appropriate spots in the room. "Are you ready to call it a night?" Klaus asked as he walked up behind her, brushed her loose auburn waves to the side and kissed her neck making her sigh.

"Not quite yet." She answered as she turned in his arms and he gave her a curious look. "Stay right here." she told him then walked around him when she heard him take a few steps the turned at pointed at him. "Na, uh, uh." He laughed and held his hands up in surrender before he tucked them behind his back.

She got the ring, took it from the box and stuck it in her back pocket then located her speaker dock on the fireplace mantle in the middle room. She pulled up a slow song from the twenties on her cell phone then put it on the dock, pressed play and walked over to the arch way and held her hand out to him. He took it and walked with her into the room, giving her a twirl before he pulled her close and started dancing with her. After a few seconds he recognized the song. "This is the song we danced to at the twenties dance." He pointed out as he pulled back to look into her eyes.

"Ella Fitzgerald's The Man I Love." She confirmed. "It took me a while to remember the lyrics considering I wasn't swept away by the song, but rather the man I was dancing with." She told him making him give her a small smile. "But I eventually did and I looked it up and downloaded it for a special moment like this."

"And why is this moment so special?" he asked considering they were just dancing.

She moved her hand from his shoulder to cup his cheek in her hand and slip her thumb over his cheekbone. "Because it's the moment I tell you I'm in love with you." His blue eyes went wide before a big smile took over is face and she moved her hands to hold the sides of his neck. "I love you, Big Bad Wolf." A yelp followed by a laugh left her lips when he picked her up by her hips and spun her around, an almost growling victory laugh left his still smiling lips as he did. He kissed her as he sat her back down and cupped her cheek in his hand. When the kiss broke she stuck her hand in her pocket. "And I hope you won't get mad, but I may have talked Bradley into making an extra stop earlier today. It was literally right around the corner from the restaurant. I promise we were safe and please don't take it out on Bradley he-" she was cut off when Klaus put his hand over her mouth.

"I'm not mad." He assured her then took his hand off of her mouth. "I assumed if there was somewhere you really wanted to go you wouldn't let me stop you and I trusted you would stay away from witches. So where did you go?"

"A jewelry store." She answered. "I've never bought anything for a man before, much less jewelry. So I'll understand if you don't like it or don't want to wear it." she held up the black tungsten band with a wood inlay around the center of it. "It's tungsten, so it can handle wear and tear and the wood is Hawaiian Koa, a symbol of strength."

When he looked up from the ring she was still holding between her thumb and index finger she saw that his eyes had watered and when he blinked a tear slipped down his cheek. Hoping it was a tear of happiness, she wiped it away. He took the ring from her and kissed her. Through the kiss he told her that he loved it and he loved her. When the slow kiss broke he asked, "Is there a certain finger you would like me to wear it on?"

"What ever finger it fits and you're comfortable with." She told him with a shake of her head. He lifted his left hand and slid it onto his ring finger, it fit perfectly and she smiled. "I was going to snoop around our bedroom at the plantation in the hopes of finding your daylight ring to make sure I got the right size, but we had to leave before I got the chance."

He grabbed her right hand in his left and pulled her close, dancing to the song again since it was on repeat. He gave her a twirl making her smile. "How long have you been planning this?"

"Since my chat with Cami." She answered.

"I have Camille to thank for this?" he asked with raised brows.

"The ring, no, the confession, yes. You seem surprised." She observed.

"Given your past jealousy I was afraid any interactions you might have with her would have the opposite effect of this." He told her honestly.

"Apart from my initial jealousy and the fact that she is not only beautiful, but drop dead gorgeous, I have no reason to be threatened by her." She replied and Klaus smiled a little. "In every other relationship I've been in it has felt like there was another woman ready to take what was mine the first chance they had. Be it Elena or Katherine…I even feared Ronan would turn to my sister when she lived with us. But for once it feels like my feet are firmly planted in the ground beside the man I love. I have no longer have any insecurities when it comes to us." She moved her hand that had been resting on his chest to hold the side of his neck. "I just hope you feel the same way." She slipped her thumb over the soft skin of his neck and looked at him with questioning eyes.

"I will admit, your hesitance had me worried." He answered and she gave him a look that asked why, although she had her own theories. "You insisted that you only wanted me yet you couldn't tell me you love me. Therefore someone had to be standing in the way. Who could it have been if not my saintly brother?"

"Me." she answered. "and my fears because with love comes hurt."

"And you know I will never intentionally hurt you." he assured her and she let a small smile pull at the corner of her lips.

"I wasn't worried about myself." He blinked at her slowly. "You're invincible and I'm…not. I was afraid that if I told you I loved you only to be ripped away from you…that I would hurt you and that is something I never want to do." Her eyes watered and he breathed out a shaky breath. "Then Cami basically pointed out that by trying to protect you I'd only hurt you more and she was right."

He rested his forehead on hers. "Remind me later to send Camille a very expensive bottle of wine or a gift basket."

"From both of us." Katie agreed.

Klaus kissed her forehead then wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she wrapped hers around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. "I love you, Little Phoenix."

"I love you too, Big Bad Wolf." She answered. After a while Klaus let go of her and walked over to her cell phone, stopped the song, took it off the speaker dock and tucked it into her back pocket. "I take it you are ready to call it a night."

"I am ready to lay in bed, in my home, with the woman that I love." He told her, "I can see the sleep in your eyes." After they got settled for the night they laid in bed, lost in thought as they cuddled, Klaus absentmindedly playing with her hair. "For future reference, what is your favorite gemstone?"

"It's a two way tie between blue sapphire and mystic fire topaz." She answered. "And diamonds are always good too of course." She added. "But not chocolate diamonds, ironically I hate them as much as actual chocolate. They just look like dirty diamonds to me." She looked up at him with sleepy eyes. "What about you?"

"I prefer my jewelry free of gemstones." He answered and she picked up his hand, looking at the ring he chose to wear on an important finger.

"So you like it?" she asked looking at their hands as she pressed her palm to his, always liking the sight of her very feminine and much smaller hand compared to his larger, masculine, nimble fingered one.

He threaded their fingers together. "I love it." he told her then pressed his lips to hers.

"Thank you for choosing to wear it on that particular finger."

"It's an important ring from a very important person. It deserved an important place to shine." He told her with a smile. "And I recall a moment when you mentioned that you didn't like that I go out and about without any indication that I'm taken." She forgotten she had mentioned that in their discussion about Cami. "And for that reason, as well as many others, it will never leave this finger." He assured her as he slipped his fingers over the chain of her necklace that hadn't left her neck since he put it back on. "Unless, of course…" he started with a tone to his voice that was meant to tempt, "it should ever be replaced by a wedding band."

"Whoa. Hey." She shot up in the bed and turned to look at him with wide eyes. "Slow down there Sparky."

Klaus busted out laughing. "I was just messing with you."

She punched him in the shoulder, which only made him laugh harder. "Give a girl a heart attack why don't you." she placed her hand on her heaving chest. "I seriously thought you were about to propose and I am no where near ready for that."

"I'm sorry." He told her realizing now that her heart was beating way too fast. "Come here." he held his arm out for her and she lay down and let him pull her into his chest and resumed playing with her hair, attempting to calm her. "I really am sorry. I knew you'd have something to say about it, but I didn't know it would push you to the brink of a panic attack."

"It's fine. I didn't know it would either in all honesty, especially considering Bradley though I was going to ask you to marry me when I told him I wanted to buy you a ring. I actually found it kind of funny." She told him quietly.

When her heart rate lowered to a normal pace he tried once again to approach the subject, gently this time, curious to know why she found the thought so frightening. "Can I ask you a question regarding certain previous subject matter?"

She smiled at his blatant attempt at avoiding the word marriage as she pulled back to look at him. "Yes. I won't freak out on you again."

"Is the thought of us getting married really so frightening or funny?" he now looked a little hurt or worried by her reaction.

"Funny no, frightening yes. It's just…" she didn't know how to explain why she had never thought about marrying him even though she loved him and most women naturally thought about their future with the man they loved…marriage, kids, navigating their forever together. She'd thought about what her dream wedding would look like before she got her memories back, but now she knew the ugly truth of what marriage could look like. "I hear the word marriage and I automatically feel…strangled."

"Because you were forced into your first marriage and felt you couldn't escape it." he said in realization.

Katie nodded. "But that doesn't mean I would feel the same way if I were to ever marry you. It just mean's…that it's a crack in my side of the mirror that needs to be mended." She said with a shrug. "I just thought it was funny that Bradley thought that _I _would propose to _you_." she explained not wanting him to think she though a forever with him was laughable. "I'm old school. It's your job to pop the question, not mine."

"After tonight's reaction I'm not sure how I would even navigate that." he admitted.

"Give me some time and help me warm up to the idea and you can do it however you want to." She told him and he gave her a smile and kissed her forehead before she tucked herself back into his chest. "And, just so you know, I used to watch say yes to the dress with Caroline all the time. So I already have a dream dress in mind." He gave her an interested look. "What type of dress do you think I would like?"

"Simple, sheath or trumpet silhouette, maybe satin and lace." He guessed thinking he was spot on until she laughed and shook her head.

"Not even close." She told him with a shake of her head. "My dream dress is no where near simple."

"Then show me." he told her now very interested because the most extravagate dress he had ever seen her wear was the dress that Elijah bought her for the Mikaelson ball and it was on the classic and reserved side of fashion.

"Not gonna happen." She answered.

"Why not?" he asked with a frown.

"Because it's bad luck for the groom to see the dress before the wedding." She answered as if it was the obvious one and he rolled his eyes. "I will tell you that the designer is Pnina Tornai and it was a custom made dress. So good luck finding it on the internet." She told him with a devious look. "And if we ever do decide to tie the knot it will be in this certain dress. If I can't hunt down the original I want to get Pnina Tornai to make another one." His jaw dropped in a smile and he laughed as he closed it and shook his head at her making demands for something extravagant. "I've surprised you again haven't I?"

"Yes." He said with a smile and a nod. "All the other dresses I've seen you wear were safe and classic.

"Most of the dresses I've worn were bought by other people and I will not play it safe with some cookie cutter wedding dress. Trust me, you'll like it. Pnina's dresses are sexy and usually do a good job of showcasing your most favorite part of me."

His eyes dropped to her chest and a dirty smirk pulled at his lips. "Yeah?" he asked and she nodded. A growling laugh left his lips as he rolled over, hovering over her as he caught her lips with his.

**A/N:** So there wasn't a lot of action in this chapter, but I thought it was time for some bonding between Katie and her father and with other characters in the next chapter now that Katie has basically been introduced to a whole new world and is a little more free to do as she pleases. Hope you guys don't find it boring. In the next chapter I will explain why Elijah has something to do with Hayley even though it seemed like she was in on Tyler kidnapping and trying to kill Katie/the baby.


	46. Chapter 46

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 46**

The next morning Katie and Klaus were talking to the moving company about what they wanted moved from where when Katie's phone started ringing and she looked down at it to see Caroline's name on the screen. _"Why is she calling? They all gave up on getting in touch with me months ago." _Katie thought as she excused herself from Klaus. With a nervous hand Katie pressed the talk button and walked out onto the balcony of their living quarters. "Hello?" Katie answered.

"Oh, my god, Katie, is it really you?" Caroline asked in a rush of unbelieving words.

"It's really me." Katie answered with a smile.

"Where are you? Are you okay? Why did you go MIA? We thought Klaus had drug you off somewhere and killed you or something." Caroline asked excited to be talking to her friend for the first time in months.

"Okay, give me one second and I'll answer what questions I can." Katie told Caroline then muted the phone so she wouldn't be able to hear Katie talking to Klaus who joined her on the balcony. "So, since everyone and their mother seem to know about us and baby Mikaelson, do you think it's safe to tell my friends?"

"I assumed Tyler had already told them." He replied.

"Hello! Katie! Don't put me on hold." Caroline yelled over the phone so loud it sounded like she was on speaker phone.

"I'm pretty sure he didn't or Caroline would've just mentioned it." Katie told Klaus with a smile at the phone and Caroline being Caroline.

"They are still your friends, yes?" he asked.

"Estranged, but yeah." She nodded.

"Then tell her before she breaks the speaker in your phone." He said with a look that at the phone that Caroline was still ranting through.

Katie flashed him a big smile and he kissed her on the cheek then went back inside to give her space. Katie unmated the phone. "Okay, to answer your first question I'm in New Orleans with Klaus who would never murder me by the way." She told Caroline.

"Well you can't blame us for assuming that he did. He was pretty mad at you before he left to go after you." Caroline replied.

Katie didn't know why he was mad at her and she didn't feel like thinking about it at the moment. "My trip here to meet my father was just supposed to last two days tops considering I didn't want to miss prom."

"Then why did you miss it and graduation and college orientation?" Caroline asked making a pain shoot through Katie's chest at thought of the life she was leaving behind for Klaus and baby M.

"Okay are you ready for some…unbelievable news?" Katie asked with a sigh.

"Um, I guess." Caroline replied.

"Seriously you should probably be sitting down for this." Katie told her.

"Okay, I'm sitting down." Caroline told her.

"I'm pregnant." Katie told her.

"You're joking." Caroline laughed. Katie knew the only way Caroline would believe her was if she saw it for herself. So she lifted her shirt, took a picture of her stomach, her daylight ring hand cupping it for proof, and sent it to Caroline.

Katie heard the rustle of Caroline looking at the photo then dead silence to a long thirty seconds. "Care…are you alive?"

"Just…processing." Caroline answered sounding like her mind was a million miles away. "How is that possible?"

"Well you see when a mommy and daddy love each other very much-"

"You know that's not what I'm talking about." Carline cut her off and Katie laughed. "Katie this isn't funny."

"I'm sorry, but you know you set yourself up for that." Katie defended herself then got serious. "When my vampire soul mysteriously recovered from getting shattered it had some biological side effects. Like fertility for example."

"Okay." Caroline drawled. "So who's the father?" she asked sounding confused.

"Klaus." Katie answered like it was the obvious answer. "Turns out when he unlocked his werewolf gene it also gave him the ability to pass it on."

"Oh my god…" Caroline sighed. "Oh my god." She said again with more vigor as it sank in. "Wait so that's why you didn't come home? Because you were scared to tell us that you're pregnant with Klaus Mikaelson's baby?"

"Uh…no." Katie answered. "Long story short the New Orleans witches used me and my pregnancy to blackmail Klaus into doing their bidding. One witch linked me to another so I couldn't leave the city or they would kill me. I couldn't tell anyone about the fact that I was pregnant because everyone was convinced that a hybrid baby would be the end of the freaking world and wanted it dead."

"God…Katie…I'm so sorry. I swear we tried to find you. Bonnie tired a locator spell but I didn't work. She said there was nothing to find and Klaus wasn't returning our calls. We really thought you were dead." Caroline defended herself.

"Yeah something tells me that spell wasn't your average everyday linking spell." Katie complained. "But if you thought I was dead why did you call me?"

"Honestly I was having a bad day and feeling nostalgic. I was hoping I could still hear your voicemail message." Caroline answered. "But I got the real thing which is so much better." The excited tone of Caroline's voice made Katie smile.

"So are you still linked to that witch?" Caroline asked curiously.

"No, I've been unlinked for a while now. It only became safe for me to let people know about the baby a few days ago and things have been crazy with Klaus and Rebekah and Elijah, hence why I haven't tried to contact you guys. It was safer for everyone if I kept you all in the dark. I'm _really_ sorry about that."

"No, Katie, I'm just glad you're okay." Caroline brushed it off. "You are okay, right?"

"I'm more than okay." Katie answered not being able to keep the smile from her face.

"Oh, hey, Elena just walked in." Caroline said and Katie could hear Caroline put her on speaker phone.

"Who are you talking to?" Elena asked.

"Katie." Caroline answered and Katie could hear the smile in her voice.

"What?" Elena asked sounding a little like she was in shock.

"She's not dead. She's pregnant and I'm pretty sure she's happy about it." Caroline informed Elena with a happy bubbly-ness to her voice that only Caroline could do without it being completely annoying.

"What?" Elena asked again and Katie could easy see Elena's jaw dropped expression in her head.

"Is that all you can say?" Katie asked with a laugh knowing Caroline would give Elena the full story later.

"Katie if I could punch you through this phone I would." Elena told her even though she sounded happy to know that Katie was alive. "Wait, did I hear Caroline right, you're pregnant?"

"Yep." Katie answered. "I'll let Caroline explain the how to you later. Right now I need to know, Caroline, are you and Tyler still together?"

"No, that's actually why I was having a bad day. We broke up last night." Caroline answered.

"Last night?" Katie asked with wide eyes. "Did he break up with you over the phone?"

"No, he was here at Duke, why do you sound surprised?" Caroline asked and Katie could hear the confusion in her voice.

"Because last I heard he was still here in New Orleans." Katie answered. "If I may ask, why did the two of you break up?"

"Because I made him choose between me and his revenge against Klaus. He chose Klaus." Caroline answered. "He never said anything to me about seeing either of you."

"Then that means that he didn't tell you what happened when he was here…" Katie sighed as she leaned on the rail and put her forehead in her hands. "I really don't want to tell you this, but… he tried to kill my baby."

"Matt said something to me about Tyler having a run in with Klaus in New Orleans and that Klaus put him through hell…" Elena said. "I guess now we know why."

"So when can we see you?" Caroline asked in an attempt to change the subject.

"I don't know…" Katie sighed. "Klaus and I are still in the process of moving into the house he and his family built way back when and a lot of things are still up in the air, but hopefully soon. I miss you guys and we have a lot of catching up to do that I don't want to do over the phone."

"We miss you too." Elena told her.

Klaus walked out onto the balcony next to Katie and wrapped his arm around her waist. She leaned her head on his shoulder. "So I gotta let you guys for now, but I promise I'll stay in touch from now on."

"Talk to you later." Elena said.

"We love you!" Caroline yelled happily.

"Bye guys." Katie laughed at Caroline as she hung up.

"So I take it your chat went well?" Klaus asked as she turned in his arm to stand in front of him and leaned back on the railing.

"Other than finding out that Tyler is not in the garden where I thought he was and telling Caroline that her recent ex is a baby killing dick, yeah. It was good." Katie finished with a content smile.

"You miss them don't you?" he asked, making it clear that he hadn't listened in on her conversation.

"You didn't eavesdrop on me, did you?" he asked a little surprised.

"Of course not. You're private conversations are just that…private." He assured her.

"I swear, you're perfect and no one can convince me otherwise." She told him with a serious look and a shake of her head that made him chuckle at her. "And I really need to stop eavesdropping on you."

"It's fine. I have nothing to hide form you. You know that." he brushed it off.

"I know, but eavesdropping is disrespectful, and I respect you as much as I love you. So I'll stop." She told him as she slid her hands up to rest her arms on his shoulders. "To answer your question, yes, I miss them. And if possible I'd love to pay them a visit." She answered as she slid her hands up his chest to rest her wrists on his shoulders.

"As soon as we get settled and find a good moment to slip away I'll escort you there myself. Unless you would rather go with your father." He told her.

"No, I'm not going that far away with him. I don't trust him that much yet." She told him with a shake of her head.

"Good, because I don't either." He agreed with her. "I have a meeting with the faction at Saint Anne's church. The moving company should be by in a few hours with our things from the plantation. I may or may not be back before then, it all depends on how the meeting goes." He told her as he pulled her closer.

"Okay. I'll obviously be here when you get back." she told him with a nod then pecked him on the lips. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." She smirked at him as she gave him a light push backwards.

"That's no fun." He commented with a playful smirk back as he turned around and headed to the front of their living quarters. She just laughed as she followed him to the door then kissed him once more before he left and she shut the door behind him.

She was sitting at a patio table on the balcony, reading a book when she heard a whoosh and looked up to see Elijah standing across from her and she jumped. "Elijah…" she sighed, placing her hand over her pounding heart. "Don't do that." she threw her book at him and he caught it.

"My apologies. I did not mean to startle you." he told her as he closed the book.

"What are you doing here?" she asked with an attitude that made it clear she didn't want him to be.

"I don't like how we left things." He explained. "I owe you yet another apology."

"You don't owe me anything, Elijah." She told him with a shake of her head, noticing that he wasn't wearing his usual suit, but a pair of dark jeans, a black cotton shirt and nice, black, button up jacket with the collar upturned instead.

He set the book on the patio table and pulled out a chair. "May I join you?" he asked with a motion to the chair.

She took in a deep breath then let it out. "Sure, why not?" her words were tainted with thick sarcasm, but he sat down anyway.

"You said it seems like I lack faith in you, I do not." He told her as he fiddled with the book on the table. "I believe now more than ever that you will help me achieve the one thing I've desired most in my life." He told her with a squint of his eyes. "My brother's salvation."

"How are we supposed to work together to accomplish anything if there is constantly this…wall, of unrequited feelings not only causing problems with you and me, but you and Klaus?" she asked wanting to work through their problems.

"That_ is_ the tricky question." He sighed as he looked down at the book and straightened it on the table.

"I can't tell you to stop having feelings for me. It's not my place or right to tell you what to do or feel." She told him as she sat up straighter and crossed her arms on the table. "But Elijah, we have to work something out. Even though you said you wouldn't let your feelings stand in the way they are… regardless of your intentions. I mean, what Klaus said about you trying to color him the lesser brother in my eyes…is that really what you were trying to do when you accused him of wanting to use our baby to sire hybrids?"

"Not intentionally." He answered. "I cannot deny that I am jealous of Niklaus an angry at myself. In all my one thousand years I have never felt such…emotional turmoil." Katie frowned and looked down at her arms on the table, hating that she was causing this. "My own grievances caused me to lash out at you. To suggest that your word could be easily broken, that my brother would use his child for his own personal gain… it was unfair and untrue. For that I am sorry."

Katie sighed as she leaned forward resting her head on her arms. "Apology accepted." She mumbled not picking her head up.

"You care about Niklaus, you're devoted to him, he makes you happy." Katie picked her head up and sat up straight. "However, because I've never heard you say, I have to ask, do you love him?"

"Yes." She answered only to see the hurt in his eyes that he tried to hide. "And it pains me to know that my love for your brother is the cause of your unhappiness. I hate seeing you like this…seeing your emotional turmoil turn you into someone you're not…" she looked away from him and down to the street below. "You don't break promises, you don't make unfounded accusations…yet since I've become a part of your life, that's all I've seen from you. If me leaving your life would solve the problem I would.

"That would only make the problem worse." He replied with a shake of his head and Katie looked back at him. "I need you in my life." Katie placed her elbows on the table and clasped her hands together at a loss of words. "If not as my lover then as my friend."

"Friends?" Katie asked with a raise brow. "Do you really think you can manage that?"

"I do." He told her with a confident nod. "Because you are not only good for Klaus, but he is good for you. You carry yourself with a confidence that I've never seen from you before. He brings out a whole different side of you…a strength that's bright and…" he shook his head not able to find the word he was looking for.

"Fiery?" she asked with a smirk.

He smirked back. "Yes." He sat up straighter and swiped his pointer finger across his bottom lip. "Niklaus has accused me of snuffing you out in the past. I assure you I only wish to help you burn brighter. I need you to tell me how to achieve that."

Katie dropped her hands and placed them in her lap with a shrug. Her green eyes looked into his browns in thought. "Just… do as you said and be my friend. Support my happiness and your brothers. I know Rebekah thinks he doesn't deserve love or happiness, especially since he's taken hers away so many times, but he does. He also deserves the love and support of his family, you all do."

"Friends it is then." He told her with a smirk that she returned before she remembered that Hayley had given him a ride back from the bayou and it fell.

"As your friend I have to ask, was that Hayley that gave you a ride home from the bayou?" she asked.

"Yes." He answered. "She was still at the campsite and came to my aid."

"You know she helped Tyler kidnap me, right?" Katie asked.

"Tyler made her." He informed her and Katie frowned. "He called her a sympathizer because she didn't believe Klaus would hurt a child. Apparently my brother aided her, protected her from Katherine, and won her favor."

"Klaus did help her." Katie confirmed.

"She also said she was afraid her anger at Tyler and what he was planning on doing might have given you the wrong impression." He explained. "She assured me she did not want the child dead, but she didn't have the power to stand up to a hybrid."

"She didn't exactly stick around to watch once we got to the cabin." Katie thought out loud. "And she pointed out Tyler's true intentions as soon as she could. I thought the distain I heard in her voice was aimed at me, but it easily could have been aimed at Tyler." Katie played the day and the little time she was around Hayley over in her head and realized what she'd told Elijah could very well be true. "I was going to say she's not a good person, but maybe that was a hasty judgment."

"Perhaps it was." He agreed with a nod as he stood up and started to leave.

"Elijah." Katie called again and he turned back to her. "You know I'm not the one you really needed to apologize to, right?" he gave her a nod then with a whoosh, he disappeared.

* * *

Katie got bored waiting for the moving company to call and started wandering around the compound. Interested in the basement that Klaus had skipped to save time on his tour, she went there and found Josh and a young woman talking in the garage. "You can trust Marcel. And if Klaus tries to hurt you…I'll hurt him." she heard the girl say.

"I'm going to politely suggest that you don't try that." Katie spoke up, alerting them to her presence.

"You're Katie…Klaus's wife?" The young pretty brunette girl observed.

"Wife no, significant other, yes." Katie answered. "And judging off your young age, confidence in Marcel and hatred of Klaus I'm assuming you're the all powerful witch, Davina. Josh I've met." She looked around Davina to Josh with a small smile. "Hello again."

"Hi." He said giving her a flick of his wrist in an awkward wave.

"The less inflammatory way to protect Josh from Klaus's backlash for leading him into a trap would be to trust me." Katie said letting her eyes bounce between Josh and Davina.

"You're Klaus's other half, why would we trust you?" Davina asked with hard eyes.

"Because while Klaus is the irrational half, I'm the rational one. And I believe in second chances." She added with a look at Josh.

"And we're just supposed to believe you?" Davina asked.

"No, but you could give me a chance to prove myself." Katie said hopefully. "Look, you and I have something in common."

"What's that?" Davina drawled with a little less distain in her eyes.

"Both our lives have been threatened by the French quarter witches." Katie answered. "We've been used by them."

"Well, your boyfriend wants to use me too, so..." Davina pointed out.

"And I may have unfortunately encouraged him…" Katie admitted. "But it was only because I was afraid and I knew you had the power to protect my baby from the witches. I know that doesn't make it right and I am sorry. I'm not trying to manipulate you or sway you from Marcel to side with me and Klaus. I'm just trying to be upfront and honest with you."

"So why would you protect Josh?" Davina asked and Josh gave her a look that said he was wondering the same thing.

"Because I have no friends' here, I had to leave them all behind." She answered with a shrug.

"What about that guy I've seen you talking to? Bradley. Are you two not friends?" Josh asked.

"If my estranged biological father is the only person in this place I can call a friend then my life is far more tragic than I ever thought." Katie admitted with an ashamed face and a shake of her head. "Oh, and," Katie perked up with a look at Davina, "I believe I owe you a thank you for saving my baby's life."

"What?" Davina asked clearly confused.

"Elijah didn't tell you what the spell he gave you was did he?" Katie asked.

"It was a spell if unknotting. He said it was used as representational magic." Davina answered.

"What is it with the Mikaelson's and not being truthful about their intentions?" she asked rhetorically with an eye roll. "The spell unlinked me from Sophie Deveraux who had been stabbed with the needle of sorrows. Do you know what that is?" she asked and Davina nodded. "You completed the spell in the nick of time and saved me from the witch's abortion attempt. I am incredibly grateful for you and your magic and equally sorry that Elijah mislead you in order to help me."

"You saved a baby?" Josh asked Davina.

"It seems so." Davina answered with wide eyes.

"Can you forgive Elijah for deceiving you?" Katie asked, trying her best to keep down the hatred of the originals, especially hatred that could be as powerful as Davina's.

"I…don't know." Davina answered sounding confused.

"Understandable." Katie nodded not pushing the subject.

Katie's phone started ringing and she looked at it to see the number of the moving company. "I have to take this, but feel free to hunt me down if there's ever anything I can help either of you with, or even if you just want to talk." She then looked at Davina. "I know you have Marcel and you trust him, but sometimes you just need another woman's ear." She answered the phone and headed upstairs.

"She's weird." She heard Davina tell Josh.

"Seems nice to me." Josh replied and Katie smiled as she walked away.

* * *

Katie was on her way through the courtyard, headed back to their quarters when she looked up from the tuna fish sandwich in her hands and saw Klaus standing on the stairs, Elijah standing at the bottom of them looking up at Klaus's back. "There is something important we need to discuss." Elijah told his brother.

As Klaus turned to look at Elijah his eyes caught Katie standing across the courtyard looking at them like she didn't know what to do. "Mmm, sorry." She said then swallowed the bite of sandwich. "I didn't mean to interrupt, I'll just…" she pointed at the second set of stairs in the courtyard and headed toward them.

"No, stay, please." Elijah said, stopping her. "You should hear this too." Katie just looked at Klaus, silently asking him if he wanted her to stay. He gave her a nod so she walked over, sitting her paper towel wrapped sandwich on one of the tables that she walked past then stood by Klaus who now stood at the base of the stairs. "While I was in the bayou Hayley informed me that werewolves from all around have been coming to New Orleans to witness the miracle pregnancy. One of them spoke of a legend. A legend wherein long ago, a chief of theirs had fathered a child to a very powerful witch. Their mythology further states, this child, a son, was later transformed into something this clan had never before seen…something werewolf and vampire." He paused to pull something out of his pocket and tossed it to Klaus who caught it in his fist. "That was found hanging around this wolfs neck. Do you recognize it?" Klaus opened up his fist and they both looked at the silver ring in his hand that was made to look like knotted twine, a hole where a stone had once been in the center of it. "Perhaps you don't, it has been a thousand years since you last saw it grace the hand of our mother."

"Are you telling us that you found decedents of his biological father?" Katie asked just to clarify.

"That is exactly what I'm saying." Elijah answered with a nod.

"I have had enough of family to last a lifetime, why would I possibly want more?" Klaus asked, seemingly unaffected by Elijah's news as he turned and started back up the stairs.

"There is something else of importance we have neglected to discuss." Elijah spoke up. Klaus stopped and turned toward him. "I accused you of having ulterior motives regarding the child…I was wrong. I'm sorry."

"I imagine that must have been hard for you to say." Klaus replied.

Elijah took in a deep breath then blew it out through his nose. "You don't make it easy to love you, Brother."

"Yet you are obstinate in your desire to do so." Klaus said and Elijah dropped his eyes then looked back up at him. Klaus looked at Elijah with emotion filled eyes. "When you are ready, should you be so inclined, both you and Rebekah are welcome to join us here." He turned his back on Elijah and headed up the stairs. "It is after all our family home."

Katie gave Elijah a small smile as she grabbed her sandwich off the table. "Is that tuna?" he asked with a curious face and Katie nodded then took a bite. "Are you a cat?"

She chewed and swallowed. "Nope, I'm pregnant and craving weird crap. If I get another craving for chocolate I might just have to try it. She told him then started up the stairs."

* * *

Klaus's hands slid over the wet, pale skin of Katie's back, helping wash away the suds of her soap. "How was your day?"

"Not bad." She replied tilting her head to the side as his hands slipped over the side of her neck then down her shoulder. "I attempted to make new friends so we wouldn't be compelling Cami. We really need to stop messing with that poor girls head."

"So, if not Cami, who may I ask will you be making friends with?"

"A certain powerful witch and her traitor vampire friend." Katie answered.

"Davina and Josh?" Klaus asked a little surprised. "Interesting choices."

"I didn't think Davina's friendship would be a bad thing. I guess I'm hoping that at the very least she'll at least let me be a mentor or even just a trusted ear. It kind of seems like other than Marcel she's alone here."

"Alone, save one high status vampire…isolated from any friends she may have had before the harvest ritual. Perhaps you see similarities between her and yourself? Kindred spirits if you will." Klaus asked as he wrapped his arms around her and set his chin lightly on her shoulder.

"Kind of, yeah." Katie answered.

"And why Joshua?" Klaus asked curiously.

"I don't know. He seems nice and he happened to be with Davina at the time." She shrugged.

"He also happens to be someone I've used…" Klaus pointed out and when she didn't say anything he turned her around to look at him. "It is not your job to right my wrongs."

"That's not what I'm trying to do." She defended.

"Josh wouldn't be a vampire had I not killed him and it is no secret that I want Davina's power…her protection for our child." He told her.

Seeing the blood from his day's killings still dried on his chest she grabbed his body wash and a wash cloth. "Yes, but people probably don't see that I encouraged your pursuit of Davina." She put some soap on the rag and started washing the blood from his skin. "I was mad at the witches and not thinking straight before. It was easy to want to use her when Davina was just an idea of a person in my head. But now I've met her and she's young and strong, not just with magic." She twirled her finger asking him to turn around so he did. "She needs someone to be straight with her and let her make her own decisions. And Josh is a new vampire which means his loyalties may not be deeply rooted with Marcel yet. I just wanted to drop a seed of trust and friendship and hope they plant it." He turned around and took the wash cloth from her. "Plus, you're more than capable of cleaning up your own messes if you want to."

"I still say I should buy you a tiara." He said with a smirk.

"Stop." She laughed and hit him in the shoulder. "So who's blood just got washed down the drain?" she asked as she stepped back and leaned against the wall, admiring him as he finished showering.

"The faction's. Excluding father Kieran. I actually see potential in him. He's a reasonable man." He answered and Katie just smirked at him. "What?"

"One of these days I'm going to get to see you in action in person." She said as she crossed her arms over her chest making him give her a small smile. "So what did they do that warranted their deaths?"

"I ignored Marcel's advice, angered the faction with my new terms and they pulled a drive by on the bar we were at after the meeting. In doing so they shot out the black out windows. Several of the night walkers were inside and burned to death before we could help them. So…" he paused to rinse out the wash cloth then tossed it over the brushed nickel grab bar and pulled her into him, "we slaughtered the lot of them." She smiled as his hands slid down to her butt and playfully bit her shoulder with a growl.

"So what's going to happen now that's there's no faction?" she asked as he kissed her neck.

"Father Kieran is going to remake it then we'll reopen negotiations." He answered as he pulled away from her neck and she turned around and turned the water off.

After their shower they were lounging around doing their own things, Katie reading A House Of Night novel on one end of the couch while Klaus sat on the opposite end with a sketch pad in his hand when she remembered that she had left out a major event of her day. "So something else happed today." Katie spoke up as she glanced up at Klaus.

"Yeah?" he asked with a glance up at her from his book.

"Elijah paid me a visit." He put down his pencil giving her his full attention. "Long story short, he sees that you're just as good for me as I am for you. We've agreed to be friends."

"And you believe him?" he asked with a frown.

"I'll believe it when I see it, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to give it a try." She replied. A few minutes passed before Katie remembered that Caroline had said that Klaus was mad at Katie when he left Mystic Falls to come find her. "So earlier today, Caroline mentioned that you were pissed at me when you left to come find me…" not able to focus on her book she closed it and put it on the coffee table Klaus didn't look up from his sketch pad. "Why were you so mad?"

"You didn't keep in touch." he answered simply.

"And that pissed you off?" Katie asked a little confused. He put his sketch pad and charcoal on the table then gave her a look that told her the answer shouldn't be that hard to figure out. "You thought I'd abandoned you…"

He nodded. "I felt like an idiot for falling for you, and I hated it." he answered quietly. "I burned half my sketches of you and I should tell you before Caroline does," a pain shot through her chest at the thought of what was about to come out of his mouth, "I let her wear your prom dress." A sigh left her lips, happy he didn't say he'd slept with her to get back at Katie. "Elena stole hers and she came to me for help since you told her about my collection." When Katie didn't say anything, looking at the floor in thought Klaus asked, "Are you angry?"

"Is letting her wear my dress the only thing you did?" she asked not looking at him.

"Yes." He answered honestly.

Katie finally looked up at him. "Then I'm not mad. That dress was too beautiful not to be worn by someone."

"As beautiful as your dream wedding dress?" he asked with a hopeful smile to lighten the mood.

She laughed and shook her head. "I never should have told you about that."

"Perhaps Caroline would know which dress was your favorite." He said with a devious smile.

"She might, but I doubt it." Katie told him with a smile as she turned around and laid on the couch with her head in his lap and a hand resting on her stomach. "You're welcome to ask her."

"I just might." He told her with a challenging tone as she brushed her hair out of her face.

* * *

A few mornings later Katie woke up to find she was in bed alone, but the smell of paint was in the air so she knew Klaus was near. "The queen awakens." He commented seeing she was up.

"What time is it?" she groaned.

"Six twenty." He answered not looking away from the painting he was working on. "I didn't let you sleep in too long did I?"

"No. It's fine." She answered. "How did you manage to get out of bed without me waking up?"

"You were in a_ very_ deep sleep. I was able to slip right out from under your arm." He explained.

She sat up and lifted her left hand to push her hair out of her face, but a sparkle of something caught her eye and she looked at her hand to see a white gold ring on her ring finger. A scroll design and a chevron ribbon of small diamonds came together to create a tiara with swirling heart at it's peak. A beautiful blue sapphire sat in the center of it. "You_ actually_ bought me a tiara." Katie said in awe as she looked up from her hand to see Klaus smirking at her.

"Well, I couldn't have you going out and about without any indication that you are taken. You are hot and as far as anyone outside this compound knows, available, and the thought of someone hitting on you makes me want to rip someone's spine out through their throat." He told her making her laugh at how he basically turned her words into his own.

"You…" Katie slid out of the bed and walked over to him. "are going to give me a big head, Big Bad Wolf."

"Does that mean you like it?" he asked with a look down at her.

"I love it." she told him as she took his hand in hers. "And I love you"

"What about this?" he asked with a motion to the painting.

She turned her eyes to the painting of her lying on the bed on her side with one hand under the pillow, the dark blue sheet wrapped around her body clinging to her beautifully. The light shining in through the three windows glinted off her auburn waves that were fanned out over her pillow.

"Is that what I really looked like or is it just how you see me?" Katie asked not believing that something so beautiful could feature her.

"Both." He answered then looked at her face, seeing that she couldn't take her eyes off of the painting. "Have I finally convinced you of your beauty?"

"Nope." She answered then looked at him. "Is it finished?"

"Not quite, but it should be by the time you're done with your breakfast." With the paint brush in his hand he pointed to the table where a plate of eggs, bacon and a croissant sat next to a steaming cup of coffee.

She stood on her toes and caught his lips with hers, told him, "You're awesome." then walked over to the table and started eating her breakfast. "A promise ring, breakfast and I get to watch you paint." she said with smile in her voice making him turn from the painting to see her checking him out. "Is it my birthday?"

"Well, it was just supposed to be the ring and breakfast, however I've wanted to paint you for a while now and this morning just happened to present the opportunity." He told her as he turned back to the canvas.

"Speaking of birthdays…" she took a sip of coffee than asked, "When is yours?"

"I stopped celebrating my birthday a long time ago." He told her not looking back at her.

"That doesn't answer my question." She sing songed at him.

"March 25th." He answered with a smirk at her over his shoulder.

"You let me miss it. Why didn't you say something?" she pouted.

"Like I said, I stopped celebrating it." he replied. "Speaking of celebrations, the annual casket girl festival is tonight."

"The what?" Katie asked with a mouth full of her breakfast.

"I'll let Rebekah tell you all about it. She likes boasting about her involvement in the history this event is based around." He answered.

Katie frowned. "That would imply that I'd have to talk to Rebekah." She took a sip of her coffee as she watched him rinse out his brush turning the clear water red. "Last I checked we weren't on the best of terms with each other."

"Well, she asked me to let you know she's having trunks of dresses brought down from storage if you wanted to go through them and find a dress for the festival tonight." He told her as he dried the brush and stuck it in a jar of other brushes then sat down across from her. "So she can't be that mad at you."

"Huh…okay then." Katie said with a shrug then went back to her breakfast and coffee. After a few seconds it clicked that she was going to get to do something fun and she looked up at Klaus who smirked at her. "Are you taking me to the festival?"

"If you would like to go, yes." He answered making a big smile spread over her face.

"Are you kidding me? Of course I want to get dressed up and go have fun with you by my side." she answered around a bite of bacon.

"You might change your mind about that when you see the theme." He told her with a devious smirk. She just rolled her eyes and finished her breakfast, now eager to meet up with Rebekah and go through vintage clothing.

* * *

"So," Katie started as she walked over to Rebekah who was digging through a really nice old wooden trunk, "Klaus told me you invited me to come pick out a dress with you…"

"Yes I…wanted to apologize." Rebekah answered as she stood up with a white dress in her hands.

"_You_ wanted to, or was this Elijah's doing?" Katie asked still suspicious of Rebekah and her back stabbing tendencies.

"Elijah may have suggested it, but that doesn't mean I'm not genuinely sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you in the pursuit of my brother's demise." She told her as she put the dress back in the trunk, deciding she didn't like it.

"Rebekah, Klaus and I may not be linked, but when you hurt him you hurt me. That's just how love works." Katie told her with a shake of her head.

Rebekah finally stopped looking at dresses to look at Katie. "What did you just say?"

"That I love Klaus." Katie answered then turned her eyes to the trunk of white dresses. "So, what's this casket girl festival all about anyway?" she asked to change the subject.

"The casket girls were virtuous young society women imported from France with the promise of marrying a proper New Orleans gentleman." Rebekah explained. "Little did they know the men who awaited them were far from proper and not at all gentle. It's a yearly reminder of how women can be oppressed by selfish men and how they can triumph when brave enough to fight for themselves."

"Klaus said you were involved with the history of the casket girls?" Katie asked.

"As often as I could I'd intercept the carriages carrying the girls and saved them from their awful fates." Rebekah answered.

"You know, I sometimes forget you're not the complete and total bitch you come across as most of the time." Katie told her with a smile and Rebekah just smirked and shook her head. "So women wear wedding dresses to celebrate girl power New Orleans style?"

"Yep." Rebekah answered them motioned to the trunk. "Have at it, although I don't see much potential in this lot."

Katie had found a dress and was trying it on in a room nearby when Elijah walked by and saw her struggling to pull up the zipper in the back. "Would you like some help?" he asked as he leaned on the frame of the open door.

"I think there's no use." Katie replied then blew air between her lips as she let her hands fall from her back. "But you're welcome to try."

The mirror gave her a clear view of him and she noticed that he had once again skipped the suit and opted for a white t-shirt, a pair of blue jeans and a black jacket. He pushed himself off the doorframe and walked over to her. He managed to pull the zipper up a few more inches, but didn't want to risk popping the stitching. "I'm afraid you were right."

"This was the biggest dress in the trunks…" she sighed as she turned to face him at the same time Klaus walked into the room. "The idea of a pregnant casket girl seems a little silly anyway." She sighed as she ran her hand over her stomach.

"You know there are bridal shops in town wit dresses on sale for the occasion." Rebekah commented as she walked in. "I'm not finding much in the other trunks either."

Katie couldn't take her eyes off of the look on Klaus's face. "I know that look, Big Bad Wolf, you can keep trying to imagine my dream dress, but you'll never guess what it looks like." She told him with a smirk making both Elijah and Rebekah look back and forth between Katie and Klaus, both just now noticing the rings on their hands.

"Is there something you two wish to tell us?" Elijah asked with squinted eyes.

"We're engaged." Klaus said with a devious look on his face.

"Klaus Mikaelson!" Katie scolded with a shocked smile as she moved from the mirror and punched him in the shoulder. He just laughed as he spun her around and wrapped his arms around her shoulders pulling her back into his chest.

"Did I just hear that you're engaged?" Her father asked from where he stood in the doorway with wide eyes. "I thought you said you weren't going to propose to him."

"Why is everyone and their mother in this room right now?" Katie asked.

"When were you planning on telling me?" Rebekah asked a little mad. "The maid of honor is responsible for helping you pick out your dress and planning everything."

"And I'm pretty sure you're supposed to ask the brides father for her hand." Her father chipped in.

Klaus just laughed where he still stood behind Katie with his arms wrapped around her. "Okay, everyone just stop." Katie told then as she stepped out of Klaus's arms. "Stop, rewind," she moved her two pointer fingers around each other in a winding motion, "and ignore Klaus." She gave Klaus a glare and he just laughed. "We're not getting married. We're not engaged and no offense," she looked at Rebekah, "if Klaus and I do ever decide to tie the knot Caroline will be my maid of honor as I promised her long ago she would be."

"So what's with the rings?" Rebekah asked.

"They're…" she looked at Klaus and asked, "promise rings?" with an unsure look. He pulled the corners of his mouth down with a shrug. "They're promise rings. Now can we get back to what we were doing?" she asked with a look at Rebekah.

"Well, I'm going out to find a dress, are you coming with?" Rebekah asked.

"Yeah, just give me a minute to change." Katie answered.

"So you're not getting married?" Bradley asked still standing near the door.

"No." Katie answered with a shake of her head. "Are you going to be at the festival?"

"No, street fares aren't really my speed." He answered with a shake of his head then noticed Klaus giving him a why-are-you-still-here look. "I'll…see you later though." He left leaving Katie alone with Elijah and Klaus and the thick awkwardness that hung around them.

Katie chewed on the inside of her lip as her eyes bounced between the two of them. "Okay, I'm gonna get out of this dress now." she turned her back on Klaus and asked, "Do you mind?" after he'd unzipped the dress she ducked behind the folding screen in the corner of the room and started changing. "So, Elijah, are you planning on going to the festival?" Katie asked from behind the screen, hoping to break the tension.

"I was actually going to offer to accompany you if my brother was too busy running his kingdom to do so." Elijah answered and Katie rolled her eyes as she pulled her maternity jeans on.

"What are you suggesting, Brother?" Klaus asked with a hard voice.

"I'm not suggesting anything, Niklaus, other than I understand running an empire can be time consuming and I do not want my one and only friend to feel neglected." Elijah answered.

_And there it is_. Katie thought to herself as she pulled her white racer back tank top over her head. "If Katie has ever felt neglected she has failed to let me know."

Katie grabbed her leather jacket from where it had been thrown over the screen as she walked around it. "Alright stop it, both of you." both of the men looked at her as she shrugged on her jacket. "I've never felt neglected." She told Klaus then looked at Elijah. "I appreciate your concern and if something comes up and he can't accompany me to the festival I'll take you up on your offer." She looked at Klaus who was opening his mouth to object. "And I'll ask you not to get jealous because I've never actually managed to stay friends with an ex and I really need to learn how to navigate it." she turned her eyes to Elijah, "We both do." She heard Klaus sigh and looked back at him. "Cool?"

"Yes." He answered with an I-don't-like-it sigh.

She smirked. "Thank you. Now if you two don't mind I have a costume to shop for with my future sister-in-law." She said jokingly as she left the brothers behind.

* * *

"So what does your dream wedding dress look like?" Rebekah asked as they looked through the markdown dresses on the rack outside the bridal shop.

"Have you heard of Pnina Tornai?" Katie asked.

"Yes, I love her." Rebekah said with a smile. "I have yet to see a dress she's designed that I didn't like."

"It's one of her custom ball gowns." Katie added then sighed as she got to the end of the rack of dresses. "Maybe it wasn't mean for me to go to this festival."

"No, nu uh, you're getting out and having fun. Come." Rebekah grabbed her hand and pulled her into the shop. By the time they were done they both had dresses that cost way too much for something they were going to wear to a street fair.

* * *

That evening Katie stood in the bedroom looking at herself in the white empire waist, chiffon, dress with tulle sleeves. Klaus walked up behind her and sat his hands on her hips as she clipped the birdcage veil into her hair. "You…are…jaw dropping." Katie just smiled at him in the mirror. "Ready?"

"More than ready." She answered as she spun around in his arms.

The two of them enjoyed the night without a hitch. Katie found herself falling in love with the city, with the jazz music, street artists, the good food and just the over all atmosphere. She found that not only did she love gumbo, but crawfish etouffee as well.

At the end of the night Katie fell into bed with Klaus, exhausted, but happier than she had been in a long time.

**A/N:** Link for Katie's ring: 15-ct-tw-composite-diamond-heart-crown-ring-10k-white-gold/p/V-20085146  
Link for Klaus's ring: /products/the-cowboy


	47. Chapter 47

**Phoenix Rising**

**Ch. 47**

Klaus woke up before Katie. That used to be rare, but it had been happening more often here recently. He couldn't help but worry. Was it the pregnancy making her tired more often or was it the fact that she was getting closer and closer to becoming fully human? The only vampire traits she had left were her enhanced sight, hearing, healing and she still burned in the sun. It was becoming more and more clear that she would be human by the time she had the baby.

As she slept his eyes drank in the view of her thick auburn lashes, thin long, thin bridged nose and thin, but nicely shaped lips. Her fair complected porcelain skin was dotted with the light freckles over her nose and cheekbones. Her shoulders were also freckled and he brushed his fingertips over them thinking she was in a deep enough sleep that it wouldn't bother her, but a sigh left her parted lips and her eyes fluttered open. "Good morning, Big Bad Wolf." She told him with a sleepy smile then rubbed her eyes.

He watched her blink a few more times then rub her eyes again with a frown. "Something wrong?"

"My visions blurry." She answered as she blinked again. When it still didn't clear up she sighed and pressed her face into the pillow with a groan.

"You wore glasses before you turned." He recalled with a frown.

Katie pulled her face out of the pillow and gave him a nod. She tried to listen to the baby's heartbeat, but couldn't hear anything. Before she freaked out she tried to listen to Klaus's and couldn't hear it either. "My hearing's back to normal too." She sighed then rolled over and grabbed the uv light out of the nightstand then took off her ring and gave it to Klaus. This time when she shined the light on the palm of her hand, her skin didn't burn. "I'm human…"

"And you hate it." he added as he cupped her cheek in his hand as a tear fell.

"Rebekah and Elena would kill to be human and here I am, human and despising it." she said not looking at his face, but his chest that her hand rested on. "I feel like I'm being ungrateful."

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you." Klaus said making her look up at his gunmetal blue eyes. "Do you want me to turn you after you have the baby?"

"We don't know that I can be turned again." She answered. "If I'm immune and you try to turn me I'll be dead for good."

"Fair point." He agreed. "You've thought about this before haven't you?" he asked.

"Yep and even if I could be turned again I want to breastfeed the baby for the first year and I can't do that if I'm a vampire." She answered.

"I'm sorry." He told her as he slipped his thumb over her cheekbone.

"Don't be. I can tolerate being human if it means I get to spend the rest of my life being a mother to our daughter and a partner to you." she told him then sat up in bed and set her hand on her growing stomach. "What I can't tolerate, however, is not being able to see anything that's not right in my face." she turned and stood up then held her hand out for her daylight ring.

Klaus watched her slip it back onto her right pointer finger. "You're still going to wear it?"

"I feel naked without it." she shrugged. "And it's really pretty."

* * *

Katie was putting in her new contacts when her phone started ringing. She decided to take a break from irritating her eyes and answered it. "Sophie." She greeted with a tired sigh. "If you're calling it means that you want something. What is it and why should I?"

"I can't just call to check up on you?" Sophie asked.

"Nope." Katie replied. "We don't have that kind of relationship so get to the point."

"I need a favor." Sophie told her in a let's get down to business tone. "With all of the elders dead there's no one to complete the harvest ritual. I need to consecrate the remains of a powerful witch so I can absorb their magic and become an elder. I know of one who's body was never found. Her name is Celeste Dubois. I believe you and she have a friend in common."

"We do." Katie nodded matter-of-factly.

"Story goes that when she died, Elijah buried her in a secret spot at her request. I need you to find out where." Sophie told her.

"You have yet to get to the, 'why should I' part." Katie pointed out.

"Because you care about this city. Your boyfriend is its king." Sophie replied. "For months now Davina has been holding the power of the three girls sacrificed in the harvest ritual, a force that was meant to flow through her and back into the earth. One person was never meant to hold that much power. It will tear her apart, and it will take this city and every human in it down with her. Without a city there will be nothing for Klaus to be king of."

"That's a hell of a reason, creative, and a complete and total lie I'm sure." Katie told her with a sarcastically chipper tone. "Good bye." She hung up and tossed the phone onto the bathroom counter.

* * *

Curious as to how Davina had been settling into the compound, Katie paid her a visit. "Hey." Katie spoke up as she leaned on the open doorway of Davina's room. The young witch was standing at an easel with a charcoal in her hand.

"Hi." Davina told her with a glance away from the easel. "What do you want?"

"I haven't seen you around." Katie shrugged. "I started to worry that you weren't settling in well or were hiding away in your room when you have this whole place to explore." Katie took in the artwork hanging on the bedroom walls. "May I?" she asked with a point to the wall of art and Davina nodded.

Katie walked along the wall taking in the drawings, all with a darker color palette. "Do you draw?" Davina asked as Katie took in a picture of a faceless woman standing in the middle of a dark forest in a long, black, long sleeved dress.

"No. I tried to paint and failed miserably." She answered not looking away from the drawing. "I admire how someone can take a black canvas and turn it into something as…hauntingly beautiful as this." She turned to see Davina set the charcoal down, done with her sketch. "What's that supposed to be, if you don't mind me asking." She asked with a point to the black smears across the large sheet of paper.

"I don't know. When I sense someone using magic I draw, but sometimes is just get these bad feelings and end up drawing something like that. They're evil." Davina answered then sat down on her bed.

Katie looked at the black smears and streaks trying to decipher it, she noticed that a certain area looked like an eye. "So there are more of these?" Katie asked with a frown at the paper and Davina hummed. "Can I see them?"

"Sure." Davina moved the paper to the side revealing a stack of papers of all different sizes. After flipping through them, noticing another eye and what looked like curly hair, Katie started laying them out on the floor, piecing together a puzzle. When it was done, the face of a woman with beautiful curly hair, and stunning dark almond shaped eyes was revealed. "Who is that?" Davina asked a little stunned to know her small pieces of artwork had really been part of a much bigger picture.

"Do you care if I steal these for a little while?" Katie asked not answering Davina.

"Depends, what are you going to do with them?" Davina asked.

"Show them to Elijah. I think he might know who she is." Katie told her.

"I don't know if I want Elijah to see them. He's already lied to me once." Davina said with untrusting eyes.

"I know you don't trust him, but he only deceived you to save his niece. And if these drawings…this woman, is evil like you say, Elijah needs to know. He might be the only one who knows why you're drawing her of all people." Katie explained.

"You're talking like you already know who she is." Davina told her.

Katie sighed. "I'm like, 98 percent sure that she's a witch and an old flame of Elijah's." Katie answered. "You can come with me to show them to him if you want. We have nothing to hide from you."

"No, I'll pass, thanks." Davina told her with a wave at the pictures. "You can take them and fill me in on what you find out."

"Thank you and I will." Katie told her as she grabbed the pictures.

Katie found Elijah's quarters and knocked on the door after a few seconds he answered. "This is a pleasant surprise." he told her with a small smile, happy that she had sought him out. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I have something to show you." Katie told him as she took in his jeans and black t-shirt then held up the drawings. "May I come in?"

"Of course." He stepped aside and she walked into the parlor and started arranging the pictures on the coffee table like a woman on a mission. When she was done she stood up and saw him frowning at the drawings. "What is this?" he asked not taking his eyes off the table.

"Celeste, I think." Katie answered taking in his brooding expression. "Davina drew these, said she drew them when she got a bad feeling. She called them evil." Katie explained. "So what I want to know is why Davina has been drawing your dead ex and why she called her evil. Davina didn't even know who this was so I'm sure she's clueless."

"Yes, I would like to know as well." Elijah replied then looked at Katie. "Have you showed this to Niklaus?"

"What and kick his always paranoid mind into over drive when I'm paranoid enough for the both of us these days? No, I wanted to see what you had to say before I told him." Katie answered. "I should probably also mention that Sophie called me earlier today wanting me to find out where you buried Celeste Dubois so that she could dig her up and absorb her magic."

"Did you tell her?" he asked with a frown.

"How could I when I don't know the answer?" she answered his question with a question.

"I know you and your father left the compound early this morning. What I don't know is where you went." Elijah pointed out.

"Look closely at my eyes." Katie told him and he gave her a confused look. "Just do it."

He cupped her cheek in his hand and looked her eyes noticing the faint lines that circled her irises. "You're wearing contacts."

"I'm completely human and I don't want a lot of people to know. So Klaus had my father sneak me off to the eye doctor." Katie told him as he took his hand off her face. "I didn't go to the plantation house and snoop through the journals you keep in a trunk to find out where you buried Celeste. I'll admit to being a little nosey, hence why I know where your journals are, but I'm not a snoopy backstabber."

Elijah got quiet for a while as he stared at the drawings of Celeste. "How did you know what Celeste looked like?" he asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Rebekah got in my head and showed me Klaus killing Emil. You and Celeste were there, making out while Klaus fed on twins." Katie shrugged matter-of-factly. "You seemed happy."

"I was." He told her with a nod.

"I'm sorry." She told him genuinely. "Seems like Klaus always gets in the way of your happiness, rather he means to or not."

"Yes, well," Elijah told her with a tilt of his head, "I'm hoping you can change that." He gave her a smirk then turned his eyes back to the drawing. "As for why Davina has been drawing my dead lover, I have no clue. Perhaps she is mistaking power for evil."

"She was a witch, right?" Katie asked and he nodded. "And she died because of Klaus. So it's safe to say that she has a grudge and a hatchet to burry in Klaus's back?" she asked uncomfortably. "It's no secret that witches have a tendency to find their way back from the dead."

"I do not believe she would bring you harm." He told her with a frown.

"It's not me I'm worried about." She told him seriously.

"I think you sometimes forget that Klaus is an invincible hybrid." Elijah told her with an amused smirk.

"Yet one of my best friends desiccated him and stuck him in a coffin. While he was held in said coffin my history teacher staked him with a white oak stake that can't be destroyed." Katie pointed out. "If your Celeste is back from the dead or planning to came back from the dead who's to say she won't desiccate him like Bonnie did and take him away until she gets her hands on the stake and kills him like he killed her?"

"It seems my brother's paranoia_ has_ rubbed off on you." Elijah said with an amused smirk.

"Klaus has a thousand years worth of enemies and I'm the woman he loves. I'm his weak point. I would be stupid to not be paranoid." She countered.

"Perhaps you are right." He told her with a shrug of his shoulder.

"So what are we going to about that?" she asked with a point to the coffee table.

"Well for starters we need to let Klaus know about this potential threat." He told her matter-of-factly.

"So you think she could be a threat?" Katie asked.

"No, but you seem to and I can't ignore the fear in your eyes." he told her as he reached up and placed the backs of his fingers on her cheek, slipping his thumb under her eyes.

Katie brought her hand up in front of her face and knocked his hand off of her with a smirk that he returned, both of them remembering how she used to do that all the time. "Maybe you don't know this, because I don't know how many close female friends you've ever had, but friends don't touch each others faces like that." she told him and he nodded. "They do however talk about fashion." She told him with a point at his jeans and black t-shirt. "What's with the lack of formal attire? You're lookin' more laid back these days."

"I'm living in the house I helped build in the city my family founded." He told her with a hint of a smile on his lips. "I do not agree with how Niklaus procured the compound from Marcel, but that does not mean that I'm not happy to be living in it once again. So I guess you could say I've been _feeling_ more laid back these days." Her stomach growled and Elijah smirked.

Katie glanced at the clock on the wall to see that it was six o'clock. "Time to feed Baby M." She sing songed as she turned from him and went to the door and pulled it open.

"Would you like me to cook you something?" Elijah asked as she walked out and he leaned on the doorframe, tapping it with his finger tips. "Are you craving anything specific?" he asked with a playful half smile.

"No." she laughed. "Thank you though. I'm actually starting to enjoy cooking. It's a relaxing way to end a long day." She told him with a smile. "We'll show Klaus those drawings in the morning?" she asked with a point behind him and he nodded. "Goodnight, Elijah."

"Goodnight."

* * *

After dinner Katie was sitting on the couch in her and Klaus's quarters reading a book when Klaus walked in and sat down next to her. "This came in the mail for you today." He handed her an envelope addressed to her from Caroline so she opened it to find another envelope that had "call me before opening" written on the front of it.

"Okay…" Katie drawled with a frown as she pulled out her phone and called Caroline. "Hey, I got your letter. What's with the weirdness?"

"I need to tell you something that I was going to tell you when you came for a visit, but it's becoming more and more evident that neither of our lives are going to allow that to happen and I can't keep it from you any longer, neither can Elena. She wanted to tell you with me, but she still hasn't gotten the hang of vampire emotions yet and I thought it best if I told you myself." Caroline told her in a rush, but not her usual bubbly rush, her voice sounded grim.

"Okay, Care, I'm sitting on pins and needles here." Katie told her unsure of what Caroline had to tell her.

"It's about Bonnie…she's dead." Caroline told her sadly.

When Klaus saw Katie's jaw drop and her eyes water he moved to the edge of the couch and frowned at her, worry in his blue eyes. "What?" Katie asked and Caroline couldn't make herself repeat it. "How?"

"She used expression to drop the vale between our world and the other side before graduation." Caroline answered. "She also used it to bring Jeremy back, but it was too much for her and she died. Because the vale was down we didn't know that she was a ghost when she graduated with us." Katie covered her mouth as tears slipped down her cheeks. "We went all summer thinking she was on a road trip with her mom, but it was really Jeremy covering for her because she didn't want us to know."

"So how did you all find out?" Katie asked through her tears.

"A month or so ago Jeremy finally fessed up." Caroline answered. Katie glanced at Klaus's worried eyes then wiped the tears from her face. "We had a memorial for her out at the cemetery. She was there, speaking through Jeremy, letting us all know that she'd been with all of us the whole time we just couldn't see her."

"I don't know if that's sweet or creepy." Katie admitted.

"I know." Caroline laughed sadly. "She told us all goodbye at the memorial and when Jeremy found out that we knew you were alive he gave me the letter I sent to you."

"What is it?" Katie asked with a look down at the white envelope in her hand.

"Since you couldn't be at the memorial, Jeremy wrote down Bonnie's goodbye to you." Caroline answered. "I really wish I could have told you in person."

"I know." Katie replied working hard to keep her voice from cracking.

"Is Klaus with you?" Caroline asked just wanting to make sure that Katie wouldn't be reading Bonnie's goodbye alone. Katie hummed a positive answer. "Okay then I'll let you go. Call me anytime okay?"

"Thank you, Caroline." Katie whispered.

"You're welcome." Carline replied then hung up.

Klaus watched her stare at the envelope with tears in her eyes for a minute or so before he asked, "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"Bonnie's dead." She answered with a whisper then looked at him. He cupped her cheek in his hand and wiped at one of her tears with his thumb. "She used expression to bring Jeremy back and it killed her." as the last two words left her lips she broke into the sobs she had been holding back while on the phone with Caroline. Klaus wrapped his arms around her, letting her tears soak his shirt. After a while she remembered the letter in her hand.

"What is that?" Klaus asked as she pulled back and broke the seal.

"Jeremy can still see and talk to the dead. Bonnie had him write me a goodbye letter." She pulled out a folded up piece of paper and as she unfolded it tears welled in her eyes again, blurring her vision. "Will you? I can't." she asked holding the letter out to him.

"Of course." He took the paper from her and started reading, "Katie, I know you wanted nothing more than to go to college, share a dorm room with Caroline, Elena and myself and be dragged away from your studies by us long enough to enjoy a frat party or two. I know you feel like you're missing something by not getting to live that life, but you're not. Over the past months I watched you fall in love and let yourself be happy again. I've watched you turn a monster into a man. You've found your place in life, somewhere you fit in. Embrace it, because we both know you were always a little too weird for Mystic Falls." Katie laughed and wiped her tears at her friend calling her weird and though no one could see her Bonnie laughed along with her, "Best wishes for the future, you'll be a wonderful mother, -Bonnie." he folded the not back up and handed it to her.

She took it and clutched it to her chest as she fell to the side into his offered arm. "I can't help but be thankful that I'm human for this." Katie whispered not looking at him. "It doesn't hurt nearly as much as it would with the double edged sword of heightened emotions."

"But it still hurts." He observed and she nodded.

"Yeah, I mean, Bonnie taught me how to do a cartwheel and a herkie and all the cheer moves when I joined the tam late. We crushed on and fought over the same boys all throughout fourth grade and always sat together on the bus for away footballs games. We T. Tyler's house together when we were bored one night." Katie said recalling some of the good times she'd has with Bonnie. "Before we turned and Caroline and I got closer Bonnie was my best, best friend."

"What can I do to make you feel better?" he asked. "I'll fly you out to Mystic Falls tonight if you want me to."

She smiled sadly. "All I need you to do right now is hold me." she answered as she wrapped an arm around his waist and he held her a little tighter. "And promise me that sometime soon we'll make a trip to Mystic Falls."

"I promise." She looked up at him and he cupped her cheek in his hand then pressed her face into his chest and let it all out.

* * *

The next morning Klaus woke up and looked at Katie to see her staring up at the ceiling, her manicured fingers fiddling with the charm of her necklace. "Would you like to talk about it?" he asked sleepily as he moved his hand to rest over her stomach, feeling the baby move.

Katie shook her head. "No." she dropped her necklace and grabbed her phone off the bedside table, pulled up her music app then pressed play. "Intro" by the xx started playing as she set her phone down then turned onto her side facing Klaus. They stared into each other's eyes as she slipped her fingers down his nude chest. He could tell by the look in hers that she didn't need to talk about it, she needed a distraction. So he caught her lips between his in a kiss that she hastily deepened. A moan left his lips as he grabbed her hip and pulled her closer, letting her feel what she did to him. When his hand slipped down her hip to her thigh, pulled her leg up over him and kissed his way to her neck, she sighed, "Klaus" and he growled and bit her neck wanting nothing more than to really sink his teeth into her. The deep rumbling sound paired with the slight sting of his bite that didn't break her skin sent a shockwave to her core and pulled a moan from her parted lips.

Lost in each other, two hours passed. They were making out, tangled in the sheets when a knock sounded at their door pulling them both back down to earth. Katie looked at the clock to see that it was a quarter past nine. "That's probably Elijah." She sighed and he gave her a curious look. "We discovered something yesterday while you were at the meeting with Father Kieran." She explained as she untangled herself from the sheet and rolled out of bed. "We were supposed to meet with Elijah this morning, but I forgot to tell you last night."

"If you are not feeling up to it we can worry about whatever you discovered later." Klaus told her as he stood from the bed and watched her grab her towel off of the bathroom door.

"No matter how much I'd like to use it as an excuse to stay in bed with you all day, I can't let my world stop because Bonnie's gone. That's not what she would want." She said with a shake of her head. "So you go to answer the door and tell Elijah why we flaked and I'll go get the shower started and avoid talking about it." she told him with slumped shoulders then went into the bathroom while he went to the door.

She had her back turned to the shower head letting the warm water loosen her tight muscles when Klaus stepped into the shower turned her around and started massaging her shoulders pulling a sigh from her. After a while he pulled her back into him and bit her neck with a playful growl making her laugh.

"How is it that I can be in the crappiest mood ever yet you can still manage to bring a smile to my face?" she asked as she turned in his arms and looked into his eyes.

"Because I love you, Little Phoenix." He told her as he cupped her cheek in his hand and slipped his thumb over her cheekbone. "And I've got you."

She slid her hands up her chest to hold the sides of his neck and looked into his gunmetal blue eyes. "I love you too."

* * *

Klaus showered faster than her and was already talking with Elijah while Katie lagged behind. On her way to the room Klaus and Elijah were in she passed Davina's open door and saw her shoving clothes into a suitcase. So she backtracked and stood in the doorway. "Going somewhere?"

"Away, you going to try to stop me?" Davina sounded pissed.

"No, you're old enough to make your own decisions, but I'd advise you not to leave for obvious reasons." Katie answered.

"You mean the witches?" Davina asked as she closed the suitcase. "Yeah I'm not scared of them anymore."

"Can I ask what's changed?" Katie asked cautiously.

"All the elders are dead, without elders there'll be no one to perform the harvest ritual. Marcel knew and he didn't tell me, he's just using me like everyone else." Davina told her clearly hurt by Marcel.

"Did Marcel tell you this himself?" Katie asked as Davina picked up the suitcase.

"He didn't have to, Rebekah told me everything I needed to know, unlike you." Davina told her as she looked Katie up and down.

"Okay first of all, I didn't know you didn't know all the elders were dead and second you need to talk to Marcel instead of listening to Rebekah. Maybe there was a reason why Marcel didn't tell you." As Katie spoke to Davina she pulled her cell out of her pocket, held it out of sight and called Marcel who thanks to Klaus and his paranoia, Katie had on speed dial.

"What reason could he possibly have for not telling me about the elders?" Davina asked.

"Maybe he knows that Sophie is trying to gain enough power to finish the ritual herself and he's just trying to protect you from her." Marcel picked up, but Katie just kept talking to Davina. "Or maybe he doesn't know, I don't know. All I know for sure is that it's not safe for you to leave, because this whole harvest ritual thing isn't over yet."

"What?" Davina asked confused.

"Those pictures you've been drawing are of a powerful witch that died two hundred years ago named Celeste Dubois. She's buried in an unmarked grave. Sophie's been looking for that grave so that she can consecrate her and absorb her power." Katie was doing her best to keep Davina from leaving the compound without lying to the girl. "I don't have to tell you what could happen if she succeeds in getting the power she needs and you're unprotected."

"You're lying." Davina accused with wide worried eyes.

"She has no reason to lie to you D." Marcel spoke up as he walked up behind Katie who stepped aside and let him into the room.

"I'll let you two talk." Katie told them and Marcel looked at her and gave her a nod of thanks. She just gave him a small smile then walked away.

"So what's this meeting about?" Klaus asked Katie as she walked into the room with him and Elijah, the drawings of Celeste arranged on the coffee table that sat between two sofas.

"You haven't told him yet?" Katie asked Elijah.

"We got off topic." Elijah admitted as Katie took in his once again more laid back attire of jeans, a black belt and a black button up dress shirt. "He informed me about your friend's death."

"Let's just focus on this, shall we?" Katie asked with a motion to the drawing. "Either these drawing were meant to warn us about Sophie's intentions for her remains or they're meant to warn us that she's back for revenge. I want to know which of the two it is."

Elijah was opening his mouth to say something when the sound of glass breaking echoed through the compound. Katie flinched then looked at Klaus. "Young, old, dead or alive, witches are a pain in the ass." He said with a sarcastic smile as he pushed himself up from the chair. "You're good at talking people down, come with me." he held his hand out to Katie. She took it and he whooshed them to Davina's room. "What's with all the racket?" Klaus asked as they walked into the room. Davina was on her hands and knees on the bed coughing while Marcel held back her hair. Dry dirt spilled from Davina's mouth as she coughed. "Bloody hell."

"Bloody hell is right." Katie sighed remembering what Sophie had told her about the harvest being incomplete. When Klaus looked at her she jerked her head for him to follow her out of the room, but before she could say anything the building started shaking making Katie yelp as Klaus moved her back against the wall and covered her head incase part of the ceiling fell.

When the building stopped shaking Klaus uncovered her head and looked down at her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She answered. "I think I know what's going on with her."

* * *

Elijah, Klaus and Marcel sat around the room while Katie stood in the middle of it. "Yesterday, when Sophie called me wanting me to find the location of Celeste's remains she told me that Davina's power is too much for her to handle, that it would tear ger apart and take the city down with it. I thought she was just lying to convince me to help her, but now…I think she might have been telling the truth."

"Who's to say that Sophie isn't doing this to Davina in an attempt to fool us into giving up Celeste's location?" Marcel asked.

"Because to do that she'd have to use magic. Davina would have been able to sense if someone else was doing this to her." Katie argued.

"She has too much power that she cannot control, that much we know for sure." Elijah said as he stood and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Klaus asked.

"This is witch business, let's ask a witch." Elijah answered as he left.

* * *

Elijah brought Sophie to the compound and showed her Davina's drawings. "So you've stolen the remains of the very person that Davina's been drawing for months. Would you care to explain this startling coincidence?" Elijah asked from where he sat at a table in the room while Rebekah sat on one couch and Katie and Klaus sat at the bar, Katie feeling jealous of Klaus and the fact that he could still drink because she could desperately use one at the moment.

"I can't." Sophie answered looking at the drawings on the coffee table. "I didn't even know who Celeste Dubois was until I-" Sophie was cut off when Davina's scream echoed through the compound that started shaking. Katie simply put her hand on her stomach until it was over. "Was that Davina?"

"Charming little habit she's developed." Klaus answered.

"And the earthquake I felt today?" Sophie asked.

"Also Davina." Rebekah answered. "And she's taken to vomiting dirt."

Sophie's face turned scared. "We have a huge problem. I thought that we had more time, but we need to complete the harvest…now."

"Said the desperate witch conveniently." Klaus said with a sarcastic smile then took a drink from his glass.

"I'm serious. That earthquake you just felt…a preview of the disaster movie that is about to hit us." Sophie told Klaus then looked at Katie. "I tried to warn you."

"No, you tried to scare me into doing your bidding." Katie argued. "How did you even find Celeste without my help?"

"I prayed, the ancestors answered." Sophie answered as if it should have been obvious then looked at the original siblings and told them the same things he had told Katie over the phone. "As she deteriorates she'll cycle through the four stages that represent the four elements that bound together the harvest. First, earth, then wind, water and lastly fire. Each stage will be more intense that the last. Since the last stage is fire it will be the worst. If the harvest isn't completed this city will burn to the ground. We need to keep her as calm as possible, the more upset she becomes the faster she'll deteriorate."

"I'll go get some sedative." Rebekah said as she stood up and left.

Klaus stood up after her. "I've got to warn Father Kieran so he can prepare the community." He looked at Katie and cupped her cheek in his hand. "Stay here where it's safe?" he asked and she nodded before he leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"You have convinced my siblings, but you have yet to convince us." Elijah told Sophie talking about himself and Marcel. Katie had been convinced from the start.

"We don't have time to waste." Sophie argued from where she now sat on a chair across from the couch. "The first signs already come and gone."

"So fix her." Marcel told her.

"She can't be fixed." Sophie told him stubbornly. "This will not stop at the earth sign and if you wait it out, you immortals will be the only ones left to argue about it." as soon as she finished talking the wind kicked up outside blowing the windows open and scattering papers throughout the room. When it calmed down Sophie looked at Elijah and Marcel. "Convinced now?"

* * *

Katie sat beside Davina's bed, having been put on sedative duty while Klaus went off to warn people about the coming storm and Elijah went to the cemetery for Celeste's consecration. "I don't know if you can hear me, Davina, but I want to you know that I'm sorry this is happening to you and I'm here for you."

A few minutes later Marcel came in. "Why'd you do it?"

"What?" Katie asked feeling like her head was in a thousand different places at once.

"You called me and let me know D was trying to leave. You vouched for me even though you don't know me and you easily could have turned her against me like Klaus has been trying to do since he found out about her. Why?" he asked as he sat down in the chair on the other side of the bed and took Davina's hand in his.

"She trusts you." Katie answered tiredly. "I know what it's like to trust someone whole heartedly and have them break that trust. It hurts and it sucks and she has enough suck in her life as it is." She leaned forward and placed her elbows on her knees, folding her hands together. "Short answer, I did it for her. Why you didn't tell her about Agnes yourself isn't any of my business. But I will tell you to watch out for Rebekah, I've got an odd feeling that she's up to something, I just can't figure out what she could gain from turning Davina against you. Maybe you can." Marcel narrowed his eyes at her. "What?"

"How did someone like you end up with Klaus?" he asked looking completely baffled.

She laughed and brushed her hair behind her ear. "We all have darkness in us, he happens to be the only person who's ever understood mine." She shrugged. "Hey, have you seen my dad around? I haven't heard from him in a while."

"He went back home, to Virginia. He didn't tell you?" he answered.

"No, he didn't, but that's another problem for another time I guess." She sighed with a rub at her temples. When she looked up she saw Marcel screwing a needle onto a syringe of sedative. Seeing as Davina had an I.V. in her arm, a needed wasn't needed to give her sedative. So Katie's heartbeat quickened as she cautiously stood from the chair. "What are you doing?"

"You seem like a nice person. I don't want to do this to you, but if you try to stop from taking Davina away from here, you could get hurt." he told her as he walked around the bed.

"Guards!" Katie yelled not remembering the names of the two vampires Klaus left to watch over her and Davina. They whooshed into the room only to have their neck broken by Marcel as Katie backed into the corner. He whooshed to her, stuck her in her bicep with the needle then plunged the sedative into her system. She felt his arms around her scoop her up before her world faded to black.

He laid her on the bed then walked around it and took the I.V. out of Davina's arm. He scooped her up and whooshed off.

* * *

"Katie?" Klaus's voice pulled her from the deep sleep. "Katie, open your eyes sweetheart."

Her eyes fluttered open landing on Klaus's worried face. "Damn it, Marcel." She groaned as she rubbed at her arm.

"What happened?" Klaus asked as Katie noticed Rebekah standing in the doorway with her phone to her ear.

"He ever so politely sedated me." Katie answered. "and took Davina."

"He's taken the girl." Rebekah told whoever was on the other end of the phone. "Bloody, bloody, Marcel!"

"And you wanted to run off and start a life with this back stabber." Klaus chipped in as he helped Katie stand up.

"Says the man who was shacking up with him not two seconds before all this went down." Rebekah argued back before wind kicked up again causing the shutters on the two windows in the room to slam open and shut. "Okay we need to divide and conquer of we're gonna stand a chance. He could have gone anywhere." She put the phone on speaker.

"Well, I'm here with Sabine. Perhaps we could try a locator spell." Elijah's voice came from the phone.

"I'll talk to Father Kieran. They might even be at the church. It's the last place we'd think to look for them, right?" Klaus spoke up.

"Okay you check the church I'll check everywhere else." Rebekah sighed then walked out the door.

Klaus looked at Katie. "Bundle up. After that scare I'm not letting you out of my site."

"You won't hear me arguing." She told him with a nod then headed to their quarters and grabbed a thick waterproof jacket of Klaus's.

* * *

"So this is Saint Ann's huh?" Katie asked as they walked into the sanctuary of the church.

"Yep." Klaus replied as Father Kieran met up with them.

"Klaus, what can I do for you?" Kieran asked then looked over at Katie. Klaus rested his hand on her lower back. "I'm guessing you're Katie." The older man, wearing a clerical collar in a black button up dress shirt that was tucked into black jeans, held his hand out to Katie.

"And you must be Father Kieran." She said as she grabbed his hand and shook it. "I've heard a lot about you."

"All good things I hope." Kieran said with a glance over at Klaus and Katie hummed a positive answer.

"As much as I'd like to carry on with the small talk, I'm afraid that's not why we're here." Klaus spoke up making Kieran look at him. "Marcel and Davina have disappeared. I assume from the stupefied look on your face they haven't sought refuge in your attic."

"No, those days are gone." Kieran replied as he placed his hands on his hips with a frown.

"Then I ask you to energize your resources. I don't need to remind you how important it is they be found." Klaus told him urgently.

"Yeah." Kieran nodded and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket as he walked away from them to talk on the phone in private.

"There's someone else I'd like you to meet while we have the chance." Klaus told Katie as he ushered her further into the church where several people were sitting around, taking shelter from the storm. "You once asked who you could turn to if something happened to me and our daughter triggered her werewolf gene. He is your answer." He motioned to a blond headed, brown eyed guy who looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. "Katie, meet Cary." The guy stood up and held his hand out to Katie.

"You're the pregnant vampire." Cary said with a smile as Katie shook his hand.

"The vampire part is debatable these days, but yeah, that's me." she told him awkwardly as she let go of his hand. She noticed heads turn her way and suddenly felt intimidated.

"Cary is part of my paternal family." Klaus told her making her look up at him across her shoulder. "I asked the pastor to give them shelter from the coming storm."

"That was nice of you." Katie said with a suspicious smirk before she looked back at Cary. "It's nice to meet you, Cary." Lightening struck making the lights flicker and Katie looked around the church as the wind started howling. "and I'd like to stay and get to know you better but something tells me we have to go."

"Unfortunately." Klaus confirmed then they waved bye to the werewolves in the church and braved the high winds to get into the car.

"I thought you said you'd had enough of family to last a lifetime and you didn't want anymore." Katie pointed out with a look over as Klaus who started the car and put it in gear.

"They've fallen upon hard time and their plight has brought out the philanthropist in me. What can I say, perhaps it's Elijah's influence." He told her with a smirk and a look at her out of the corners of her eyes. When she just stared at him with a raised brow and a smirk he looked at her again and laughed. "Or rather the very strong influence of My Queen."

"Yes, because I'm so philanthropic." She said with a shake of her head that suggested he was being ridiculous.

"I know you worked with Habitat for Humanity both freshman and sophomore year and during the summer when you could take the time off from working at The Mystic Grill. You don't often have the time, but when you do you help those in need." he told her making her remember that he'd read her journal and knew things about her that only her three best friends knew.

Her eyes went to the tiara on her finger. Elijah and Rebekah had both told her she was exactly what Klaus needed, but she hadn't really believed them until now. She was changing him without even trying. Damon had asked her to be his moral compass and she'd failed miserably. Why was it that she was getting it right with Klaus when her own moral compass didn't exactly point due north?

"What's on your mind, Love?" Klaus asked when he glanced over and saw her playing with her necklace.

She dropped it as they pulled into the garage of the compound. "If we make it though the night in one piece I'll answer that question."

Klaus walked around to the passenger door and opened it for her then held his hand out to help. She took it, even though she didn't necessarily need his help getting out of the high vehicle.

* * *

"Whoa, pause." Katie told Elijah as she walked into the room he and his sibling were in having caught the tail end of what he's said. "Rewind and play. You want to do what?" Katie asked with a frown.

"There was no magic in Celeste's bones for Sophie Deveraux to absorb. So I offered her Esther." Elijah reiterated.

"That's what I thought I heard you say." Katie said as she walked up to stand behind the couch that Klaus and Rebekah were sitting on. "Are you insane?"

"What she said." Rebekah said with a point at Katie and a glare at Elijah.

"If Rebekah's agreeing with me then maybe I should let you keep talking because I'm clearly in the wrong." Katie said with a sarcastic tone.

"What did I do to shove a stick up your bum?" Rebekah asked Katie.

Katie rolled her eyes, "Don't get me started."

"Can I suggest we get back on topic?" Elijah asked and the girls turned their eyes to him as Klaus looked back at Katie and grabbed her hand gently guiding her around the end of the couch to sit beside him.

"You want to hand them our mother?" Rebekah asked Elijah.

"Yes, our beloved mother, who Niklaus has affectionately placed in a coffin in his basement. Not daggered, but quite dead." Elijah said from where he stood in front of them with his hands on his hips.

"Well she did try to kill us all." Klaus added in his defense with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together.

"Well, I saw we put her to use and put her to rest once and for all." Elijah continued. "Now if we burry our mother on land owned by one of her decedents, she becomes a new Orleans witch and we as her family share in that ancestral magic."

"We're vampire's Elijah, we can't practice magic." Rebekah pointed out the obvious. "Or own property for that matter."

"Yes." Elijah confirmed. "With regard for practicing magic, that's where Sophie Deveraux comes in. After we bury our mother we can channel all of her power to Sophie. All we have to do is participate in the harvest. This includes you, Katie, you're carrying a descendant of our mother and therefore her power."

"Awesome." Katie replied with a sarcastic smile.

"And as for owning property…" Elijah turned to a filing cabinet and pulled out a certificate of some kind, "Not all of our mother's descendants are dead."

"The baby." Katie and Klaus said at the same time.

"The baby." Elijah confirmed. "The parish tax assessor's office is just steps outside of the quarter." He held the paper out to Klaus and Katie. "Katie now holds the title to the plantation." Katie sat up and looked at the paper in Klaus's hands to see her name on it. "So, if we bury our mother there and we consecrate those grounds, we can finish the harvest ritual."

"You're a bit of a mad genius, Elijah." Klaus told his brother with an impressed look then slapped the title onto the table and stood up. "Count me in."

"Am I the only one thinking?" Rebekah asked, "Our mother was the most powerful witch in history. If we bury her, we hand that power to our enemies to use against us."

Katie rolled her eyes then looked at Elijah when he said, "Given our circumstances I hardly see that we have a choice, Rebekah."

"I don't know why I bother. You two will just do what ever you want unless Queen Katie says otherwise." Rebekah popped off and Katie stood from the couch.

Klaus saw the fire in her eyes and pulled her into his side. "Now is not the time for a fight, Little Phoenix."

"Then remind her that I'm hormonal as hell and in no mood for bullshit." Katie told him with flared nostrils.

Klaus looked at Rebekah with a smirk. "You heard her."

"The decision must be unanimous." Elijah spoke loudly to get their attention back to the topic at hand.

"This is not a democracy, Elijah." Klaus argued.

"You're quiet right." Elijah agreed with a point at Klaus without looking away from Rebekah. "This is family." Lightening struck as it started to downpour outside. "Water…" Elijah sighed. "The next sigh's begun. Rebekah?"

Rebekah looked back and forth between Klaus and Elijah then finally said, "Kill a demon today face the devil tomorrow. Count me in."

"Katie?" Elijah asked as he turned his eyes to her.

"I'm in." she answered with a nod.

"Well," Klaus said with a smile, "this is no family reunion without our mother." He looked at Katie and held his hand out to her. "Let's fetch her."

* * *

"So not only do I have a house in Mystic Falls and you have your mansion there, but you have the compound here and I have a plantation house with an in-ground pool and apple orchard?" Katie asked from the passenger seat of Klaus's Land Rover.

"Feeling privileged?" Klaus asked with a smirk in his voice.

"Privileged no, spoiled yes." Katie answered.

Things fell comfortably quiet between then until they pulled up in front of the plantation house. "So what's with all the tension between you and Rebekah?"

"That…is another question to be answered tomorrow." She sighed.

Klaus shifted in his seat looking at her tired eyes as he slipped the backs of his fingers over her cheek. An unasked question in his eyes.

"I'll survive." She answered tiredly. "Is that house still stocked with food?" she asked and he nodded. "Good, I could use a cup of coffee."

While Klaus dug the grave for his mother Katie stayed inside out of the rain and warmed up with a steaming cup of coffee and dinner. When everything and everyone was ready, Klaus brought her out to the grave where Elijah and Rebekah stood under one umbrella, Katie and Klaus under another and Father Kieran stood at the head of the grave containing Esther with a cross in one hand and his umbrella in another. "Are you ready to do this?" Father Kieran asked.

Klaus pulled out a dagger and looked at Elijah and Rebekah as he said, "Always and forever." Katie held the umbrella in one hand and her other hand open palm up as Klaus cut her palm, not wincing from the stinging pain then closed her hand and watched as he cut his then passed the blade to Rebekah. She and Elijah cut their palms then handed the dagger over to Father Kieran who tossed it into the grave with Esther and said that it was done. Katie noticed the stinging on her palm was gone and opened it up to see that the cut had healed. She nudged Klaus and showed him her hand. He looked at it with a confused frown, neither of them could figure out why she had healed if she was human now.

From there they relocated to the cemetery where the harvest girls had been laid out on top of a raised cement platform. They were starting to think Marcel and Davina wouldn't show, when the bright light of fire caught their eyes and they looked to see Marcel carrying Davina. He brought her over and sat her on her feet on the platform. Sophie held the sacrificial blade over a flame then stepped up on the platform and asked Davina, "Do you believe in the harvest?"

"I believe." Davina answered. Katie knew what was coming next, but when Sophie put the blade to Davina's neck and slit it open she flinched and started praying to whoever would listen, hoping with everything in her that Davina would wake up at the reaping. Not only for the sake of using her against the witches if she still could after all this was over, but for Marcel as well. Katie didn't know the guy well, but he was like a son to Klaus. If Marcel lost Davina he wouldn't be the only one affected by that grief, for when your family hurts, you hurt and Marcel was Klaus's family even if they fought like cats and dogs sometimes.

With Davina dead the rain stopped and they put their umbrellas away as Sophie and Marcel placed Davina in the line up of dead girls. "After the harvest, comes the reaping." Sophie spoke where she stood beside the stone bed while the four of them stood at the girl's feet. "Their sacrifices made and accepted. We call upon our elders to resurrect your chosen ones." They all looked at the girls, expecting them to take a breath, but nothing happened. "We call upon our elders to resurrect your chosen ones." Sophie repeated and once again nothing happened. "Resurrect your chosen ones!" she said getting mad. "Please, I beg." When she saw that it wasn't working, Sophie broke down making a tear slip from Katie's eye. As she wiped it away she saw Marcel glaring at Klaus before he whooshed away.

"Stay with them." Klaus told Katie then whooshed after Marcel.

After that Rebekah whooshed off leaving Katie with Elijah and Sophie. "Walk with me?" Elijah asked holding his arm out to her and she took it, letting him lead her out of the cemetery. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm just tired." She answered as they walked out of the cemetery gates. "Of death, of not being able to be there for the people I care about. Being a half assed friend."

"Are you speaking of Davina or Bonnie?" he asked and a tear slipped down her cheek.

"Both, but mainly Bonnie, if I had just been there, if I never came here to visit my father and got stuck here, maybe Bonnie would still be alive. Maybe I could have done something to stop her from bringing Jeremy back and killing herself." she said what she'd been thinking all day.

"I don't know her well, but something tells me you couldn't have stopped her." Elijah said in an attempt to quiet her guilty thoughts.

"I know I just…" she sighed and ran her fingers through her frizzy waves, pushing it back out of her face. "It's been a long day and my pillow is calling my name." Seeing how tired she was Elijah wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into him. Before she had time to protest he whooshed her to her bedroom door. She took a step back and looked up at him. "Thank you."

"Have you eaten today?" he asked realizing how busy their day had been and she was human now and she and the baby needed proper nutrition.

"Yeah, I ate while Klaus dug your mother's grave." She answered. "All I need to do now is take a warm bath to defrost my bones, collapse into bed and sleep for like the next week." Elijah smirked at her exaggerations. "Goodnight, Elijah."

Elijah set his hand on her shoulder as he closed the space between them then kissed the top of her head. "Goodnight, Katie."

When Klaus came up to the room, he found asleep, her damp hair fanned out over her pillow as soft snores left her parted lips. So he showered then slipped into bed with her, happy that she was getting much needed rest.

**A/N:** Just a friendly reminder that review's are food for writers. :-) follows and favorites are also highly appreciated.


	48. Chapter 48

**Phoenix Rising  
****Ch. 48**

A week later Klaus and Katie sat at a dining table in their quarters having breakfast. He had a plate of stake and eggs and she had a bowl shredded wheat with banana slices in it and strawberries and kiwi's on the side. "So you have yet to answer my questions from the other night." Klaus started then took a drink of the blood in his glass. "I'm starting to think you're avoiding them."

"What were your questions again?" Katie asked genuinely not remembering his questions.

"Why have you been biting Rebekah's head off?" he asked.

"Do we have to ruin breakfast with talking about Rebekah?" she asked back.

"Yes." He answered then took a bite of eggs.

"She told Davina about the elders being dead and had her all worked up and ready to run away." Katie answered. "Your sister loves to conspire behind your back and I have a bad feeling that's she's up to something. I mean, why else would she try to turn Davina against everyone?" Katie asked. "Not to mention, how did she even know where Marcel took Davina that night?"

Klaus frowned at her. "Sweetheart, Rebekah is Rebekah. She is always scheming against me and over half the time nothing comes of it." he told her. "Stress is not healthy for you or the baby. Will you leave worrying about Rebekah to me?"

Katie took a deep breath and let it out through her nose. "Fine." She turned her attention to her cereal and focused on eating it before it turned mushy. When she was done with it she realized that Klaus had said questions, plural. "What other questions did I not answer yesterday?"

"In the car, after we visited the church, you were thinking hard about something. I wanted to know what you were thinking about, but you do not have to tell me if you don't want to." He replied then pushed his empty plate away.

"I was thinking about me and Damon." She answered making him cross his arms over his chest with a frown as he watched her stare at her plate pushing a kiwi slice around with a fork. "When we were together he asked me to be his moral compass, help him make better decisions, but…it didn't work because I'm not a moral compass and he never listened anyway. He wanted me to make him a better person and I failed. But with you…I'm changing you even though that was never my intention and we both know I'm not fit to be anyone's moral compass." She sat the fork down and looked across the table at him. "Elijah and Rebekah have both said that I'm what you need, that I'll help Elijah redeem you. I thought they were full of it until I saw you reach out and help people that it would be super easy for you to write off and turn away from. I don't understand it. How can I be you're redemption when I'm not good?" she explained then shook her head and blinked out of her thoughts. "I'm over thinking what doesn't need to be over thought."

As Klaus watched her finish her strawberries and kiwi's he thought about what she just told him and when she was done he spoke up. "Elijah puts too much pressure on you." she just sighed and pulled her feet up into the chair and rested her chin on her arms folded on top of her knees. "You inspire me to be a better man just by being who you are…loving me in spite of my flaws and making me want to be worthy of you and your affections." A small smile pulled at the corners of her lips, she felt the same way about him. She wanted nothing more than to earn the invisible crown he had placed on her head. "Affections that I hope will grow when I keep my promise to you." he stood up and pulled tickets out of the inner pocket of the jacket he was wearing. "Feeling up to a visit to Mystic Falls?"

Her eyes instantly brightened. "You're serious?"

"Damon has informed me that Katerina Petrova is human and on her death bed." he told her with a devious smirk. "All the more reason to make the trip."

An excited laugh left her smiling lips as she launched herself from the chair into his arms that caught her and spun her around. "You're. Freaking. Awesome." She told him between kisses and he laughed when she pressed her lips to his in a final lingering kiss then pulled back. "I have to call Caroline and Elena."

She rushed off to the bedroom where her phone was charging and called her friends. After excitedly gushing on the phone with her friends she found Klaus sitting on the patio couch on the balcony and straddled his lap, holding the sides of his neck as she looked deeply into his eyes. "I love you."

"That, My Queen, is what I aspire to hear every day." He told her as he cupped her cheek in his hand then kissed her deeply.

* * *

The two of them sat side by side in the economy class seats of the plane. Katie stared out the window at the blue sky and white puffy clouds below. "I'm not complaining, but I'm surprised you didn't spring from first class seats."

"First class and business seats have dividers between them. We wouldn't be able to see or touch each other and this is our first flight together." He explained as he slipped his hand over hers that rested on the armrest of the seat. "So I bought the third seat to give us more space." He said with a motion to the empty isle seat. Katie just smiled at him and slipped her hand over her stomach. "How is our princess today?" he asked when he saw her hand move the slightest bit from the baby's kick.

"Squirmy." Katie answered. "I'm not sure she likes the turbulence."

"Hang in there for a couple more hours, Little One." Klaus told the baby as he placed his hand over Katie's and pecked her on the cheek.

A sweet looking old lady across the isle smiled at them having overheard their conversation in the close confinements of the plane. When Katie noticed the woman asked, "How far along are you, hun?"

"Twenty four weeks." Katie answered with a small smile, not bothered by the woman's curiosity.

"Oh, a little over half way there. Is this your first?" She asked with a look between Katie and Klaus. Deciding to go with the simple answer Katie nodded. "A little advice, don't bother wasting your time packing a huge bag to bring to the hospital. They will have everything you and the baby need there. My granddaughter packed half her house and only ever touched the clothes she packed to wear home and the cute clothes she pack for the baby."

"That's good to know. Thank you." Katie told her genuinely grateful for the advice. The woman smiled and gave her a nod, letting the conversation fall.

"Are we planning on having more?" Klaus asked her quietly, the question of if this was their first, kick starting his thoughts.

"Would you want more?" Katie asked a little surprised at his question.

"I'd never thought about it until now." he answered.

"Then let's see if we can manage to bring this little one into the world safely before we discuss the possibility of more Mikaelson rugrats." She answered with a small smile that he returned then pecked her on the lips.

When the flight was over the lady wished them luck and happiness in their future endeavors. It was the first time Katie had felt something even close to normal since becoming pregnant, like she and Klaus were just your average, everyday, happy, expecting couple.

* * *

"She pretended to be buried in a tomb for 145 years while I waited for her lying ass." Katie and Klaus heard Damon say as they let themselves into the boarding house. "Wait, does that beat pretending to be Elena and kissing me on the front porch of your old house?"

"Don't think so." Jeremy answered as they followed the voices and the smell of bourbon to the library.

"I don't think so either, damn." They walked in as Damon threw back a shot. "Quarterback go." Not seeing them he held a shot glass out to Matt who failed to come up with a reason to take the shot quick enough. "Think on that. Little Gilbert?" Damon held the shot glass out to Jeremy and his eyes landed on Katie as Jeremy took it from his hand.

"She fed me to Silas and I died." Jeremy threw back a shot and picked up another. "Then she made me crash my car into a pole and left me for dead, again." Jeremy and Matt then noticed her and Klaus.

Katie walked over and picked up a shot glass. "She snapped my neck, killing not only me but my unborn child." She smelled the glass missing the taste then passed it to Klaus who took the shot.

He set the glass down then picked up another one and held it up. "On the night I planned on sacrificing her she stole the moonstone, ran, and then proceeded to evade me like the slippery little snake she is for over five hundred years. Cheers." He threw back the shot and set it back down on the table.

Matt picked up a glass. "My sister's dead because of her."

"Yes, she is because I wouldn't have even been in town to turn Vicki into a murderous vampire if I wasn't trying to get Katherine out of a tomb she was in." He handed Matt and Jeremy glasses and motioned Klaus to the table as he said, "Group shot."

"Seriously?" Katie heard Elena say and turned around to see her and Caroline walk into the room. Excited to see them she ran over getting embraced by her two friends, all of them laughing, happy to see each other again. "There's someone else who's missed you." Elena told her as they let each other go.

Katie followed Elena and Caroline's eyes to see Bonnie step into the room with a smile on her face. "Oh my god, Bonnie?" Katie asked in shock. "You're alive?"

Bonnie nodded, her bobbed off dark hair moving as she did. "I'm alive, kind of."

Katie ran to her and threw her arms around her, happy to find that she wasn't a ghost. "You're alive." Katie laughed with happy tears on her face.

"And you're pregnant." Bonnie said with a laugh as she pushed Katie back and looked down at her small, but clearly protruding stomach.

"And…" Katie started as she and Bonnie walked over to stand in a circle with Elena and Caroline, "Human."

"What?" "Did you find another cure?" "Come again." Elena, Caroline and Bonnie asked at the same time.

"Mystical side effect of a supernatural pregnancy…nature finding a balance and all that." Katie answered.

"But you're still wearing your daylight ring." Elena pointed out.

"I've gotten a little attached to it." Katie shrugged.

"How long are you in town for?" Caroline asked with an excited smile.

"Uh…we haven't discussed that part." Katie said with an unsure look behind her to Klaus.

"Don't look at me, Love, those were open ended tickets." Klaus answered.

"Well, we can't leave New Orleans under Marcel's control for too long so…four days?" Katie asked Klaus.

"Things are calm back home, why not make it a week?" he proposed making Katie smile.

She looked back at her friends, "Then I guess I'll be here for a week."

"So he's staying?" Jeremy asked making every one look at him to see him looking at Klaus.

"Look, I know he's tried to kill Elena in the past." Katie started as she walked back over to the middle of the library.

"Did kill Elena, technically." Klaus corrected with a wrinkled of his nose.

Katie looked at him, "Not helping." Klaus smirked and held his hands up in surrender. She looked back at Jeremy, "As long as Tyler Lockwood steers clear we shouldn't have any problems. That is if Tyler is still here."

"He's not. I haven't seen him since we broke up." Caroline spoke up as she walked over to the table of now refilled shot glasses. "Did you know your dad's here? My mom got a call about mysterious activity at your house and when she went to check it out your dad answered the door."

"Marcel mentioned it, but Bradley failed to tell me he was leaving town." Katie answered as she watched Caroline grab a shot glass.

"We were toasting to all the horrible things Katherine's done, right?" she asked and everyone hummed a positive answer. "Tyler's werewolf curse got triggered because of her." Caroline said then threw back the shot making Katie remember that Katherine compelled a girl to attack Tyler so that he would kill her and trigger his curse so Klaus could have someone to sacrifice.

"If anyone is drinking to Katherine's last days, it's me." Elena said as she walked over and grabbed a glass. "She impersonated me, repeatedly." She threw back the shot then picked up another one. "Made Aunt Jenna stab herself in the stomach and cut uncle John's fingers off." She threw back the next one.

"He might have deserved that." Jeremy spoke up and everyone, even Elena agreed.

As more shots were poured and toasts made Klaus made himself comfortable in an armchair and pulled Katie down to sit in his lap, drinking Katie's shots for her whenever she made a toast.

"Klaus followed her to Mystic Falls and because of that, we lost Jenna" Elena toasted.

"And Alaric." Damon added.

Soon the bottle was empty and Matt left to get another. "She tried to kill me at least twice." Elena said.

"She did kill me." Caroline countered then thought about it. "Although I'm weirdly better off."

"At least she killed you for a specific reason." Katie spoke up. "Which now that I think about it was for you to sacrifice along with Tyler." She thought out loud with a look at Klaus then shook her head as she got back to her point. "The message she gave you, "game on" actually made sense while I got, "You're welcome." I still don't know if she thinks she saved me from teen motherhood or if she killed me for you." Katie said with a motion at Damon.

"If that's the case, he blew it." Klaus spoke up.

"Yeah he's good at that." Elena added with an eye roll and Katie looked at Bonnie and Caroline with curious eyes. Caroline mouthed that Damon broke up with her and Katie bit her lips closed keeping her comments about Damon being an idiot to herself.

"So where is the dying doppelganger?" Klaus asked.

"In Stefan's room." Damon answered then threw back a shot. Klaus patted Katie's thigh asking her to let him up so she did.

"Don't kill her?" Katie asked making him stop and look back at her with a questioning look.

"And end her suffering too soon?" he asked back with a smirk. "I'm just going to talk to her." he told her feigning innocence.

"Uh huh, sure you are." Katie told him with a quiet laugh and shake of her head.

"By all means, have at it." Damon told him with a wave in the direction of Stefan's room and as Klaus headed to torment Katherine, Katie sat back down in the chair. "Rumor has it she burned down the entire city of Atlanta once." Damon said getting back to the Katherine hating.

"All right. Knock it off or take it somewhere else." Stefan said as he walked into the room. "You guys are being insensitive."

"Come on Stefan, don't let the sight of a frail, human, Elena look-alike cloud your memories of the manipulative psycho that she is." Damon held out one of the last two shots to his brother.

Stefan took it. "In 1864, Katherine moved into my home, compelled me to love her, seduced my brother, fed us full of vampire blood, and then started a war with the town that got us killed."

"Exactly, bottoms up!" Damon said then threw back a shot.

"But centuries before that, she was just an innocent girl who was shunned by her family. So for 500 years she lied and manipulated and did whatever she had to do to survive and she did. She's a survivor, right? So that's the girl that I will drink to today. Cheers." Stefan threw back his shot.

"Please, one night of hot sex with her and you're brainwashed?" Damon asked.

"What?" Elena asked.

"What?" Bonnie asked with a confused blink.

"And just like that, morning sickness makes a come back." Katie chipped in with a disgusted face.

"Oh, my…" Caroline said then looked at Elena. "I forgot to tell you. You were kidnapped and hostaged and…"

Katie looked at Elena, "You were taken hostage?"

"We really do all have a lot of catching up to do." Caroline complained.

"The bottle's empty I should probably-" Stefan started, but Damon grabbed the empty bottle and stood up.

"That's why you never send a bust boy to do a man's job." He said as he turned around. "Nadia, the devil's spawn." He said making them all notice a tall beautiful brunette standing in the doorway of the library. "Hey Caroline, did you remember to tell Elena that?"

Katie looked at Caroline to see her face palm. "I think my mind just exploded." Elena groaned as she stood up.

"Katherine's daughter is still alive?" Katie asked Caroline who nodded then dropped her hand.

"Katherine's upstairs." Elena told Nadia then took a shot.

"Actually, I'm here to see all of you." Nadia replied as she walked into the room. "Although, I don't know who you are." She said with a point to Katie who just flicked her wrist at her in a wave not bothering to introduce herself. "I found a way to save my mother and I need some help." Damon pretty much told her to go to hell. "I figured as much. Which is why I found that old safe your brother spent his summer drowning in and buried it on this property with your friend Matt inside of it." Katie stood from Klaus's lap now completely interested in what this woman had to say. "Oh, without this." She held up one of the two resurrection rings like Alaric and John used to wear and set it on the table she was standing next to. "Volunteers?" Nadia asked.

Elena and Stefan volunteered and left with her. Caroline, Bonnie and Jeremy volunteered to search the property for Matt.

Katie found Klaus messing with a passed out Katherine's head and tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. "You're welcome to join me." Klaus told her not getting out of Katherine's head.

"Um, maybe later if we have time. I need you're help with something." He gave her his full attention. She jerked her head for him to come downstairs. "Katherine's daughter is apparently still alive and has taken Matt. She buried him in a safe somewhere on the property. Will you help find him?" she asked as they came into the library.

There was no way he could say no to the worried look in her eyes. Even if Matt was just a useless human to him, he meant something to Katie. "Of course." He motioned her to the front door and as they walked away Katie heard Damon make the sound of a cracking whip. Katie rolled her eyes and kept on walking. When they got out side they saw Bonnie, Jeremy and Caroline walking off to the left of the house. So Katie and Klaus went to the right.

It didn't take too long before Klaus could hear Matt's distant cry for help, wrapped his arm around Katie then whooshed them to the mound of dirt, covering Matt, who Katie could now hear screaming inside the safe. In a little under thirty minutes Klaus had uncovered the safe and broken the door open. "Klaus." Matt huffed as he stood up and saw his rescuer. "Never thought I'd be saying this to you, but thank you."

"Thank Katie." Klaus replied with a smirk then jerked his head in the direction of the house.

Matt looked at Katie as they started walking back to the boarding house. "Thank you."

"Matt, I hate most of the humans in this town. You're one of the two that I don't hate."

"Who's the second?" he and Klaus both asked.

"Sheriff Forbes." Katie answered.

"What about Jeremy?" Matt asked.

"Is he human now?" she asked a little confused. "I mean, he's come back from the dead twice, he was a hunter and he can see dead people. I kind of don't count him as human, but if you do then he's the third person on the list."

When they got back to the boarding house they found out that while everyone was gone Nadia had broken Damon's neck. No one knew what she'd done, but no one seemed to care because Katherine was sill lying in Stefan's bed, slowly dieing.

* * *

Later that night, the two of them sat in the Salvatore living room along with Caroline, Jeremy, Bonnie and Matt listening to Bonnie explain to Katie how she was both alive and dead that the same time because she was the anchor to the other side. Elena was upstairs with Katherine. "So this anchor thing, does it mean that you'll, like, be able to feel Katherine's death or whatever?" Matt asked Bonnie.

"I think so. I mean, she's human, but she's also a doppelganger and a traveler apparently." Bonnie answered and Katie mad a mental note to find out what a traveler was.

"So who else do you see over there?" Matt asked. "Anybody I know?"

"I see lot's of people." Bonnie answered. "My grams, the other witches…Vicki." Katie looked at Matt to see that he looked like he was about to cry. "I just don't talk about it, you know, it just…" Bonnie shrugged then looked over her should as if someone was there then laughed and looked at Matt.

"What's happening?" Matt asked.

"She's here. She said she loves you." Bonnie answered then looked behind her as if she were listing to Vicki.

"Wait, what's happening? What am I missing?" Matt asked.

"Me." they all looked at the doorway to see Tyler standing on the front landing with a duffle bag in his hand, his eyes trained on Caroline.

"I think that's our cue to call it a night." Katie said as she stood from the couch and held her hand out for Klaus who took it and stood up.

"No." Caroline said as she stood up and glared at Tyler. "He's the one that needs to leave."

Tyler then noticed Katie and Klaus and his eyes widened before he looked back at Caroline. "They told you."

"That you tried to murder my best friend's baby?" Caroline asked clearly pissed at him.

"Hybrid baby." Tyler argued. "The hybrid part is important considering he can use it to sire hybrids without Elena's blood. I bet they left that part out of the story."

Caroline looked back at Katie who was standing beside Klaus, his arm wrapped around her waist. Caroline bit her lip in thought then looked back at Tyler. "It's still just an innocent baby, Tyler. The baby of someone you used to consider a friend before you became so hell bent on a revenge mission that is turning you into a completely different person."

"He killed my mom, Caroline!" Tyler yelled at her making Katie roll her eyes.

"And I've killed twelve witches and a carnival worker!" Caroline yelled back. "Elena killed a hunter and a waitress, Damon and Stefan have killed countless people, but I can guarantee that none of them have attempted to kill a baby!"

Damon walked through the front door with a bottle of bourbon in his hand and Tyler turned to look at the pure anger in his wide blue eyes. "Get the hell out of this house." Stefan came in and walked around the two guys.

"What the hell do you care? She's sleeping with your enemy now." Tyler told him with a glare.

"There is one big difference between you and all of us that Blondie left out." Damon told him as he walked over to look down at Tyler. "We love Katie and that baby, hybrid or not." Damon jerked his head for Tyler to look behind him. When he turned around he saw Caroline and Stefan standing behind him veins popping under their reddened eyes. Bonnie held Jeremy's crossbow loaded with a stake, aimed at Tyler's chest and when Tyler looked at Klaus he saw the veins under his red and amber eyes. When he looked back at Damon, Damon smiled with a hiss showing off his sharp fangs. Tyler pushed his bag higher up on his shoulder as he walked around Damon and out of the open front door.

When he was gone they all turned to see Katie with tears pooled in her eyes. "Holy shit." She laughed and wiped her eyes. They all smiled at her as they made themselves comfortable around the room. Katie and Klaus remained standing.

Damon walked over to her and leaned down looking her in the eyes. "I told you I would always love you." he pecked her on the forehead then looked at Klaus and pointed at him with the bottle in his hand. "Don't screw it up like your brother did, otherwise we might have to try to kill you again."

"Try being the key word." Katie said with a smirk as she cut her eyes up at Damon who looked down and returned the smirk.

"Katie." Bonnie spoke up and Katie looked at her to see her looking at the fireplace a few feet away from where she and Klaus were standing. "Your mom's here."

"What?" Katie asked with a look back and forth between Bonnie and where she was looking.

"She wants me to tell you that she loves you, she's happy you've listened to your heart and keep it up kiddo." Bonnie told her.

Katie smiled and looked around the room, "I love you too, mom." She looked at Bonnie. "Thanks."

To lighten things up Stefan looked at the table behind the couch in the parlor and said, "So we've really gone through four bottles of bourbon today?"

"Oh my god." Bonnie whispered.

"Alaric?" Jeremy asked as he turned around and looked behind the couch.

"Ric's here?" Damon asked.

"Where the hell have you been?" Jeremy asked Alaric, "I thought you bailed on us to go find peace or somethin'."

Bonnie and Jeremy laughed a little. "He's talking about me isn't he?" Damon asked.

"He…says you're a dick." Jeremy answered.

Katie noticed Bonnie's face fall before she said, "Katherine."

"Ding-dong. Does that mean the witch is dead?" Damon asked making Katie smirk at him and Stefan nodded.

"Well I say that's a cause for celebration." Caroline spoke up with a cheerful smile. "I say tomorrow night we throw a party to celebrate Katie's return and Katherine's death."

"Hell yeah." Damon said as he held up his bottle and everyone else agreed that it was a good idea.

"Will there be karaoke?" Klaus asked making everyone give him a confused look and Katie gave him a glare.

"Isn't Karaoke kind of cheesy?" Damon asked voicing everyone's thoughts.

"Oh come on, don't tell me none of you know abo-" he was cut off when Katie put her hand over his mouth and he started laughing.

"Ignore him." Katie said with an embarrassed smile and red cheeks. "Karaoke _is_ cheesy and should be no where near me."

Klaus pushed her hand down and looked at her. "How is it possible that you've been friends with these people for nineteen years and they don't know that you can sing?"

"You can sing?" Caroline asked with raised brows and a smile.

"Nope." Katie answered evasively and Klaus rolled his eyes at her.

"See for yourselves." Klaus pulled out his phone, pulled up a video and handed it to Caroline.

When "The Good Life" by Three Days Grace hit her ears along with her voice singing the lyrics Katie turned and punched Klaus in the shoulder. He leaned away from her and rubbed his shoulder with an open mouthed laugh. "You didn't tell me you recorded me."

"Because you would have deleted it the first chance you got." He argued.

"Yeah and as soon as I can get my hands on your phone I will." She told him.

"I'll just have Elijah send it to me again." He told her with a devious smirk letting her know that Elijah had recorded her too.

"Okay, it's settled." Caroline said as she tossed Klaus his phone back. "We're having Karaoke."

"No." Katie begged.

"I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I agree with Barbie." Damon said and everyone else agreed.

"I was humanity-less and drunk when I did that." Katie reasoned. "Now I can't be either."

"Come on." Bonnie told her with a smile and a tilt of her head. "When was the last time you let loose and had fun with us? Besides you may not be able to get drunk, but I'm sure everyone else in the place will be." Bonnie pointed out. "Speaking of place, where are we having this party? We can't have it here considering there's a rotting corps upstairs and Tyler's is out of the question."

Everyone looked at Katie and Klaus. "Our place it is." He said with a look down at Katie who nodded in agreement then covered her yawn with the back of her hand. "Which is probably where we're about to be heading." Katie nodded still yawning before she dropped her hand.

"It's only eleven thirty." Stefan of all people pointed out.

"I woke up at five thirty this morning to catch a flight here." Katie defended. "And Baby M. likes her sleep." Katie held her hand up over her shoulder and Klaus placed his hand in it. "Good night everyone." They all chimed their goodnights as Katie and Klaus left.

When they got to the mansion they went straight to Katie's room, got dressed for bed and she crawled between the clean sheets with a sigh. Not quiet ready to go to sleep she laid on her side with her head on Klaus's shoulder thinking about her first day back in Mystic Falls. How Damon called Klaus whipped, how Klaus helped save Matt even though he didn't like Matt, how amazing it was that Bonnie was back and the fact that all of her friends stood up to Tyler for her.

"I may have withheld certain bit of information when I told you about my reasons for wanting to fly you here." Klaus said quietly and Katie propped her head up with her elbow and hand to look down at him. "You are good at pushing back and ignoring the things that weigh you down, but I could see that missing you're friends was getting to you, then when we learned of Bonnie's passing it got worse." He reached over and brushed his fingers down her cheek, running his thumb along her cheekbone. "So when Caroline called and told me about Bonnie's return to our side and asked me to fly you here I couldn't say no."

"Even though my friends have tried to kill you several times in the past?" she asked with an amused smirk. "And they _did_ kill two of your brothers."

"Yes, well, they also stood against Tyler for you and our baby today. So I'll take that as a sign that the days of them plotting against us Mikaelson's and shunning you for having something to do with me are over." He let his hand slip from her face.

"After they turned their backs on me I thought I'd never be able to call them friends again, but seeing them stand together tonight and tell Tyler to get lost…It was a little overwhelming." She told him sounding lost in thought.

"Just goes to show how much we've all changed over the past year." He pointed out and she realized that it really had been a year since she and Klaus first slept together.

"Wow." She whispered at the thought. "We've been together for a year now, I mean, I was out of it for three months of it but I still count it."

"And I look forward to many more years spent with you by my side, Little Phoenix." He told her then pecked her on the cheek thinking she was too tired for more.

But she placed her hand on the back of his neck, stopping him for pulling away. "Thank you for planning this trip for me."

"So you're not upset that I withheld information and worked with Caroline behind your back?" he asked then pulled puppy dog eyes.

She placed a lingering kiss to his lips that caressed hers then pulled back and gave him a smirk. "No. I'm not mad you worked with my best friend to surprise me even though I usually hate surprises."

"Good, now get some sleep before you pass out." He told her with a look at her heavy eye lids.

"Sir, yes, sir." She sighed making him chuckle as she cuddled into his side, using him as a body pillow and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

* * *

The next morning after breakfast Katie and Klaus drove to her house and found a Honda accord parked in the driveway. Klaus parked behind it and killed the car. Katie got out then noticed that Klaus didn't. "Are you coming with me?"

"No, Love, I think this will go down better if I'm not around to intimidate him." he replied with a closed lipped smile. "But I'll be close."

"I know you usually don't because you respect my privacy and all, but will you eavesdrop, just incase something is off with him?" she asked and he nodded.

With a huff she shut the door and walked up the sidewalk to the front door, raised her hand and knocked. Her father's eyes went wide when he saw that it was her. "Scarlett."

"Hi." She said with an awkward flick of her wrist.

"What are you doing here?" he asked when the shock faded and he stepped aside for her to come in.

"I could ask you the same question." She pointed out. "One minute you're taking me to the eye doctor and the next Marcel is telling me that you went home to Virginia. Not to sound like a bitch, but why the hell didn't I get so much as a see you later?"

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I wasn't intending on staying. I was just coming to get some things out of the basement." Katie gave him a look that asked him to keep talking. "But when I got back I ran into Liz and we started talking and rekindled an old flame."

"So you're moving back because of Caroline's mom?" Katie asked with a scrounged up face.

"I was planning on coming back and telling you goodbye." He told her with a shake of his head.

"Goodbye?" Katie asked with a glare. "After all of that I want to be a family, please allow me to be a part of your life bullshit you spouted?"

"I do want to be a part of your life and my grandchild's." He argued. "I don't have to live in New Orleans to do that. Besides, you don't need me. You're all grown up with a family of originals who would rip the head off of anyone who so much as threatened to harm a hair on your head."

Katie sighed and let her head fall forward as she scratched at the back of her neck. "I'm sorry." She told him as she looked back up at him then around the living room they stood in. "So you and Sheriff Forbes huh?" she asked with an odd look on her face and her father nodded. "Weird, but whatever floats your boat I guess. Let's just hope she doesn't turn you to the other team like she did Bill." He just shook his head at her.

"Hey while I'm thinking about it, what happened to my roll top desk?" he asked as Katie moved to the front door.

She placed her hand on the doorknob as she thought about it. "You mean the one with your hidden will in it?" she asked rhetorically. "I moved it to the Salvatore boarding house when Grandpa kicked me out and I lived there for a while. I don't know what happened to it after that. Ask Damon or Stefan." She answered. "I don't want to make Klaus wait in the car too long so I gotta go."

"See you later." he said as he watched her pull the door open and leave.

* * *

Katie stood in front of the mirrored door of the wardrobe looking at herself in the dress she'd bough for the party that had already started down stairs, someone singing bad karaoke clearly already drunk. Klaus walked up behind her taking in the floor length, royal blue, flowy dress with halter straps and an off the shoulder ruffle. "You look beautiful, just so you know."

"Thank you." she told him with a smile.

"Do you know what you're going to sing?" he asked with a devious look.

"Actually, yeah, I do." She told him as she turned in his arms then pecked him on the nose and grabbed his hand. "Come on."

When they got down stairs the song that someone was singing terribly and out of key was over so Klaus whooshed them over to the computer the karaoke machine was hooked up to in the corner of the ballroom. "Hey, I was next." A girl complained.

Klaus turned and placed his hand on her shoulder as he looked her in the eyes. "Wait a tic, yeah?" the girl hummed and Klaus looked back at Katie. "Give me a minute to gather your friends before you start?" he asked as she nodded.

When all of her friends were gathered in the room Klaus gave her a thumbs up. She took in a calming breath then let it out, hit play and stepped up to the microphone on the stand. "With A Little Help From My Friends" by The Beatles started playing and Katie started singing her nerves showing in her wavering words but her eyes landed on Klaus who winked and smiled at her it felt like he somehow transferred her some confidence and her voice got stranger and better. "I get by with a little help from my friends. I get high with a little help from my friends. I gonna try with a little help from my friends." she sang as she turned her eyes to Damon, Elena, Stefan, Caroline, Bonnie and Matt who all seemed impressed.

When the song was over Katie put the microphone back on the stand where she had taken it from and walked over to her friends who all said they never expected her to be able to sing. "Why didn't you tell me you could sing like that?" Damon asked as she walked away from the group headed to the kitchen to find something non-alcoholic to drink.

"You never asked." She answered simply as she opened the cooler sitting on the floor and found a can of coke, probably intended to be a mixer. "So what happened with you and Elena?" she asked as she popped the can open then took a drink.

"I really don't want to talk about it." he answered but Katie just raised her brows at him.

"Turns out doppelgangers are fated to be together." He answered with a shrug hoping it would be enough to get her to drop it.

"Since when do you let fate tell you what to do?" she asked with a frown.

"He's lying to you." Caroline said as she came in to refill her cup from the keg. "To quote Damon's words to Elena, "I'm bad, Elena. I am bad for you and I'm choosing to let you go."

"Would you get out of here and stop quoting my break up?" Damon asked Caroline with a glare.

Caroline just looked at Katie then left. "So you think you're bad for her?" Katie asked as she pulled herself up to sit on the kitchen counter.

"You should know better than anyone else that I can't change who I am." Damon told her with his back to her.

"If she loves you she wouldn't ask you too." She told him and he turned to look at her with wide eyes. "You asked me to be your moral compass. So I know you want to change, you want to be a better man. And if any one's moral compass points due north it's hers."

"I just don't want to change her." he told her honestly.

"She's going to change regardless, it's called personal growth." Katie pointed out making him roll his eyes. "She challenges you, just as much as you challenge her. Love is boring without the other person making ask questions you normally wouldn't ask yourself. I know you well enough to know that the possibility that you could change that both of you could, terrifies you."

"I'm not terrified." He told her with a scoff and she gave him a get serious look as she hopped off the bar.

"Just get over yourself and fix things with her." she told him as she patted him on the shoulder then walked around him into the entryway. She found Klaus, Caroline and Bonnie talking near the front door. "What are you guys talking about?" Katie asked as she walked over to them.

"Huh? Hmm? Nothing." Caroline answered making Katie glare at her with a smirk.

"Yeah…" Katie drawled. "What's your major again?"

"Drama." Caroline answered.

"Then you might want to work on your lying skills." Katie pointed out and Bonnie laughed.

"You'll find out in due time, love." Klaus told her with a devious half smile that showed off his dimples.

"I'm sure I will." she looked at him through her lashes as she stepped up to be chest to chest with him. "Good thing I trust you all." She said then grabbed his hands turned and wrapped his arms around her.

* * *

By the end of the week Katie's three friend's had gotten her all caught up on all the drama that had been going on with every one, Silas and Amara's demise, the doctors at Whitmore college who were experimenting on vampires and had held Elena and Damon hostage, but Damon got them out, how Elena force fed Katherine the cure, and how Stefan spent all summer locked in a safe at the bottom of Wickery Falls drowning over and over again. Katie also got them all caught up on everything that had been going on with her and the originals in New Orleans.

* * *

Their last morning in Mystic Falls Klaus woke up to music playing down stairs and followed it to find Katie standing at the stove in a pair of thin cotton pajama pants and a tank top with her back turned singing along with "Superhero's" by The Script as she danced to the beat and flipped a pancake in a skillet. Klaus just leaned on the archway that led to the kitchen with a smile on his face, enjoying seeing her more relaxed than he ever had and completely unaware of his presence. "She's got lions in her heart, a fire in her soul. He's got a beast in his belly that's so hard to control. 'Cause they've taken too much hits, taken blow by blow. Now light the match, stand back, watch them explo-" when she turned to put the pancake on a plate her eyes landed on Klaus and she stopped mid sentence as a furious blush colored her cheeks. Klaus started laughing. "You weren't supposed to wake up yet." She said with a point at him with the plastic spatula in her hand.

"How was I supposed to sleep with your beautiful voice and the smell of pancakes filling the house?" he asked as he walked over to her and took the spatula from her hand.

"I may have gotten a little carried away." She drawled with a look around her at the mess she'd made with the pancake batter, chocolate chips and powdered sugar. "With the breakfast _and_ the music." He pushed the stuff aside, picked her up and sat her on the bar. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize." He told her with a look into her eyes. "I rather enjoyed the show. I've enjoyed this whole week seeing you spend time with your friends, laughing and letting go. I'm kind of starting to wonder if this is where you should be calling home."

"No." Katie told him with a shake of her head as she wrapped her legs around him. "It's been nice, therapeutic really, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. If you recall I was ready to get the hell out of this town with you after spending a single night with you. I'm still not sure if that just goes to show how much I hated this town, how much I already cared for you or if I was just run away and join the circus crazy by that point." They both laughed at the last scenario. "As much as I've loved spending time with my friends, I'd never want to stay longer than a week or so at a time, any longer and we'd get pulled into the supernatural shit show that is always going on here when we have enough going on back home as it is."

"You're sure?" he asked.

"I'm sure." She answered with a nod. "This stays a vacation house. I can already picture our daughter sitting over there at the table, munching on chocolate chip pancakes while we stand here, making out behind her back. Only for her to catch us and tell us how gross we're being because no one wants to see their parent's being all sappy and stuff right?"

A sparkle in his blue eyes made her realize exactly what she'd said. "Careful Little Phoenix, it's starting to sound like you're letting yourself think about the future." He rubbed her sides with his thumbs over her thin pajama tank top.

"I'm dreaming." She corrected. "It's easy to dream when it's just me and you away from it all and a little old lady gives me advice like I _am_ just a normal pregnant woman, but do you seriously think our lives could be that perfect? That we could ever be anything close to normal when there is _always_ going to be some kind of threat hanging over our heads and our daughters when she gets here?"

"We can hope." He answered as best he could and she shook her head as her eyes fell. "It's not always a bad thing to have hope for the future, Love."

"I know and I'm trying." She told him as she lifted her eyes to his.

"I know you are and you're making progress, otherwise you wouldn't have even let yourself dream." he told her making her smile and shake her head at him. "Speaking of the future, I may have had a little conversation with Caroline about a certain tv show called Say Yes to the Dress." He said the name of the tv show with a devious look on his face.

"No." Katie said with big eyes. "She couldn't possibly remember the dress."

"Oh she even knew the serial number of the dress." He told her with a big smile. "Apparently your choice surprised her enough that she found it noteworthy."

"Caroline…" Katie scoffed with a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head.

"Not that she told me given the fact that she knew you'd kill her if she did." He added with a tilt of his head making Katie laugh at how well her friend knew her. "Bonnie said that I should get down on one knee and make it romance movie perfect because the two of you have been watching sappy romantic comedies and dreaming about the perfect proposal since you were twelve. Elena added that the ring better be huge and sparkly."

Katie wrinkled her nose and face palmed with a laugh. "Leave it to them to make me sound like a picky drama queen." He smiled and tucked a stray lock of auburn hair behind her ear.

"Well you did demand a very specific, vary hard to find dress, so…" she just laughed and shook her head at him. "So how much truth was there in their advice?" he asked totally serious.

"Throw all of it into the trash." She told him honestly.

"Noted." He told her with a smile that made her shake her head at him.

She caught his lips with hers for a slow tender kiss. When it broke she dipped her finger into the sifter of powdered sugar and booped him on the tip of his nose with it then smiled. "I love you."

"That's how you show you love me?" he asked with a laugh and she hummed a positive answer as she wiped the rest of it on his cheek. "Then allow me to show how much I love you." as he spoke he picked up the sifter and took a step back and slung it at her covering her from shoulder to hip with a dusting of powered sugar kick starting a fight that in seconds had them laughing and coated from head to toe in sticky white dust.

She yelped and slipped backwards a bit on the counter when he attacked her neck with kisses tasting her sweetened skin. Something cold and wet touched her hand making her look over her shoulder to see that they had knocked over the bowl of pancake batter. "Aww, I wasn't done with that." she complained as her stomach audibly growled and Klaus pulled away from her neck to see that spilled batter.

"Then we will make some more." He told her as he helped her down off the bar and sat the bowl back up.

"We?" Katie asked at the implication that he would be helping her cook.

"Believe it or not I didn't always have minions to wait on me hand and foot." He told her with a smirk. "I do know how to make pancakes." After cleaning up the spilled batter, leaving the sugar mess for said minions to clean up, Katie grabbed one of the cold chocolate chip pancakes she'd made and took a bite, trying chocolate for the first time in years. "Did you just eat chocolate?" Klaus asked with a look at the brown dotted pancake in her hand as he mixed up more batter and she nodded. "And the verdict is…"

"I like it." Katie answered a little surprised.

"I'm guessing you had another craving." He observed with a half smile.

"Chocolate chip pancakes specifically." she answered as she moved to sit on the counter by the stove and watched him pour batter into the skillet then add some chocolate chips. "I figured I'd splurge a little since it's the last day of our vacation."

"I'm sure our little princess doesn't mind a treat every now and then." He said with a look at her over his shoulder. She just smiled and shook her head as she slipped down off the bar, got a glass of milk then sat down at the island watching Klaus's backside as he cooked. He was working on the last pancake when he said, "Stop it."

"Stop what?" she asked innocently. "I'm not doing anything." She pulled her phone out of her pocket and quietly snapped a picture of him.

"I heard that." he commented. "And you're going to delete it."

"I'll delete it when you delete the video of me singing karaoke." She commented and when he turned around with a smile she snapped another picture. He whooshed around the island and tried to grab her phone but she hid it behind her back with a laugh. He wrapped his arms around her, pretending to grab for the phone and started kissing her neck that still had sugar on it. They were about to get lost in one another again when her stomach growled again. He pulled away and pushed the plate of pancakes at her then grabbed her glass of milk and refilled it. "So you haven't been bored out of your mind this week?" she asked with a look up from her plate.

"Not at all." He answered. "However, if Damon calls me whipped one more time I might decide to remove his head from his neck." Katie just laughed and shook her head. "You think I am kidding?"

"No, I know you're serious, but if you could restrain from killing him for just a few more hours it would be highly appreciated." She finished with a hopeful smile.

"He's lucky I love you." he told her with a half smile that showed off his dimples.

"_I'm_ lucky you love me." she told him then took a bite of the pancakes that were better than the ones she cooked.

* * *

"Are you sure you can't stay a little longer?" Caroline asked from where she sat across the table from her.

"I'm sure." Katie answered then looked around the Mystic Grill. "As much as I missed you guys, Bonnie was right in the letter you sent me. I don't fit in here anymore, New Orleans is my home now. French Quarter witches and all."

"Speaking of witches that want to harm you." Bonnie started then passed Katie a black container and she took the lid off of it to see what looked like three vervain or wolfsbane bombs. "Alaric talked me through making these for you." Katie looked back and forth between Bonnie and Caroline. "It's an herb blend that when inhaled by a witch will mute their magic. My mom's used it on me before, it works. It's not much, but it should at least give you a fighting chance."

"Bonnie, I don't kn-"

"Just say thank you." Bonnie told her with a pointed look and a smile.

"They will be fun to get past airport security, but…thank you." Katie told her with an appreciative smile.

"So what time is your flight?" Caroline asked sadly.

Katie looked at the time on her phone, "Klaus will be by to pick me up any minute." She answered then put her phone back down. "Why isn't Elena here again?" she found it weird that Elena was at their farewell lunch.

"She had a class that she couldn't skip." Caroline answered. "And you're really okay with the fact that you're missing college?"

"Yes." Katie answered. "I mean, it sucked at first, but as crazy as it is I love my life in New Orleans with Klaus. Especially now that I'm back in contact with you guys and I don't have to hide from everyone."

A horn honked outside and Katie saw Klaus out front in her car that they were having shipped to New Orleans. "That's your ride." Bonnie told her with a smile.

"Okay, group hug." Katie sighed with a sad smile as she slipped out of the stool at the table and held her arms open for her friends. They hugged her then walked outside and saw her off.

**A/N:** I know this was a bit of a filler chapter, but we're going to be getting back into the originals storyline in the next chapter. Also I can never seem to catch all the typos in my stories. If anyone wants to be my beta reader P.M. me and we'll work something out.


	49. Chapter 49

**Phoenix Rising**

**Ch.49**

"You're back." Elijah said with a smirk on his face when Katie walked through the front doors of the compound that led straight into the courtyard where Elijah sat in a black suit, light blue shirt and a black tie reading a book.

"I'm back." Katie said with a smile and a look around the place. "And you're wearing a suit." He closed his book and sat it on the table. "The laid back look didn't suit you. Pun intended."

Elijah just shook his head at her bad joke as he stood up and walked over to her where she'd stopped next to the fountain. "How was your trip?" he asked as he held his hand out for her bag.

"It was good, but I'm happy to be home." She answered as he took her duffle bag off of her shoulder.

"So where is Niklaus?" he asked as they started up the stairs to Katie and Klaus's quarters.

"Father Kieran asked for a meeting as soon as we returned." Katie answered as they came to the door and she pushed it open. "So how was your Klaus free week?"

"Quiet." He answered with a bit of a smirk as he put her bag down next to the door.

"A good quiet or I'm bored out of my freaking mind quiet?" she asked curiously as she sat down on one of the two couches in the sitting room.

"Good quiet." He answered with a bit of a nod as he sat down on the couch across from her.

"Good." Katie said with a small smile.

Things had fallen comfortably quiet between them for a few minutes when Elijah looked around. "I just realized there is not a t.v. in your quarters."

"Yeah, so?" she asked with a confused shake of her head.

"So, how can you watch your man if there's not a t.v. in your room?" he asked with a smirk.

"My man?" she asked still confused.

"The crossbow wielding man with angel wings on his back and in dire need of a bath." He described making Katie wrinkle her nose at the memory of her telling Elijah that Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead was her man. "Or do you only have eyes for Klaus these days?"

"Yes, I only have eyes for Klaus, but I am also a red blooded American woman who can't deny that Daryl Dixon is very attractive." Katie told him honestly.

"And who pray tell is Daryl Dixon?" Katie heard Klaus's voice behind her and turned to see him walk into the room having caught the end of her sentence.

"A fictional character from her favorite t.v. show." Elijah answered for her as he stood up and Klaus walked around the couch and sat down next to her. "Blue eyes, dirty blond hair, questionable people skills…It seems she has a type." Elijah said then saw himself out.

"You know, now that I think about it the guy that plays Daryl is also an artist. Maybe I do have a type." She thought out loud.

"You're trying to make me jealous aren't you?" Klaus asked with a glare to which she just held up her fingers in a pinching manner with a devious smile.

He glared at her and let a low, playful growl rumble up from his throat. "Okay," she laughed holding her hands up in surrender, "before you go all Big Bad Wolf on me…what did Father Kieran need?"

"He asked me to compel Camille to leave town." He told her and she frowned. "The look on your face tells me I was right to seek your council before compelling her."

"Why does he want her to leave town exactly?" she asked as she turned pulling one of her knees up on the couch to face him.

"It seems compelling her to sleep easy and accept that her brother simply snapped, hasn't had the desired effect. Her pursuit of what happened to her memories is leading her closer and closer to the dangerous truth. Father Kieran doesn't want her to get mixed up in our world. I've stopped compelling her since moving here, but it's too late. If I don't compel her to leave she will get mixed up in all of this and you know better than anyone what happens to the people that get pulled into our world." He explained.

"I also know that unfortunately some people are just meant to get mixed up in our world and will do so no matter what compulsion is worked on them." She added. "Take Jeremy for example. Damon compelled him to leave town and forget about Vicki. He did, but Kol found him and pulled him back in. You can compel Cami to leave, but if someone wants to get to Father Kieran again they will just go after her and pull her back in. I'm not sure compelling her to leave and taking away her choice in the matter is the answer."

"So do you think we should just let her find out the truth on her own?" he asked curiously.

"I think you should ask her what she wants. It was clear when I met her that she felt like she was going insane and compelling her to leave won't fix that or the gaps in her memory." She answered.

"Have you been compelled before?" Klaus asked.

"Nope and I hope it never happens. Which is why I picked up this while we were in the mansion." She said as she pulled her vervain necklace from Damon out of her pocket. I figured since I can't ingest vervain I could wear it just in case." She explained.

He took in a deep breath and breathed it out. "So exactly what do you suggest I do?"

"Let her remember everything." She started.

"She will despise me." he pointed out.

"Maybe, but there's also the chance that by letting her have a say and giving her back her free will she won't. She may even choose for you to cover up everything supernatural with a story fabricated by her and choose to leave on her own. But I firmly believe it needs to be an educated decision on her part and that you need to respect her decision whatever it may be."

"It will anger the priest if she doesn't leave." He pointed out.

"Just because he is her family doesn't mean he knows what's best for her or that he gets to dictate her life." Katie shrugged. "Telling her everything includes that her uncle knows about vampires and witches. I didn't agree with Elena messing with Jeremy's memories and I didn't use compulsion a lot when I was a vampire for a reason. I don't like playing god a messing with people's free will." Klaus sighed and turned away from her as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. "You know, just because you come to me for advice, doesn't mean I'll get mad if you don't take it. I trust you to do whatever _you_ think is best."

"I'm just trying to figure out if I should warn Father Kieran of what I intend to do before we talk to Cami." He said then sat up and looked at her.

"We?" Katie asked.

"I would like you to come with me. My presence tends to put her on edge however last I checked you managed win her favor." He told her with a look in his eyes that told her he was set on taking her advice.

"Okay." She gave him a nod. "I'll go with you."

* * *

Katie stood next to Klaus who knocked on the door of Cami's apartment. After a few seconds she answered, looking confused for a second before she remembered them. "What do you want?" she asked him with a glare, her eyes darting back and forth between the couple.

"We just want to talk." Katie told her.

"According to your uncle you are on edge and not yourself." Klaus added.

"And you're here to what, compel me not to be?" Cami asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Actually I was going take your uncle's advice and compel you to leave town. However after discussing things, we," he looked at Katie then back at Cami, "believe that wouldn't clear the root of your anxiety." Klaus stated. "May we come in for a chat?" he asked with a motion inside considering the couple was still standing in the hallway.

"Sure, why not." She answered sarcastically and stepped aside letting them in.

After explaining everything to her, she stared at them with tears in her eyes. "My uncle has known what happened to Sean this whole time?" she asked with a whisper and Katie nodded. "Why are you telling me about all of this if I'm just going to forget it when you leave?"

"Because we want to give you a choice in the matter." Klaus answered then looked at Katie.

"Knowing what you do about this city is dangerous." Katie took over. "It may very well mean the death of you, but we don't want to manipulate you anymore. You can choose to remember everything, a little or nothing at all." Katie explained. "Point is…how much you want to remember, if you leave or stay…it's your choice."

Cami just stared at them. "You do not have to decide today." Klaus told her

"I want to remember, everything about everyone." Cami answered, her studding green eyes wide and watery.

"You're sure?" Katie asked needed to know that this was truly what she wanted.

"I'm positive." Cami answered with a wide eyed nod.

"Okay." Klaus answered then moved to kneel in front of Cami, placed his fingertips on her cheek and looked her in the eyes. "You will no longer forget about us when we leave your site and you will remember everything. You…are…free."

As Klaus stood up Cami blinked out of the compulsion then looked up at him. "Thank you, both of you." when she looked at Katie she gave her a nod and a small smile.

"You're welcome, although I'm sure your uncle will not he happy with me." Klaus replied.

"Probably not, but he'll just have to get over it." Cami said as she stood up and crossed her arms over her chest with a smirk.

* * *

"What do you think about me letting Thierry out of the garden?" Klaus asked as they walked into their quarters.

"I don't know." Katie answered as she set her shoulder bag on the table by the door. "He's only in there because you set him up. So he doesn't really belong there, but at the same time if you let him out he might want revenge."

"Or perhaps if I issue him a pardon he will be thankful enough to not try anything stupid." He countered as he grabbed her hips and pulled her close.

"I've never met Thierry." She answered as she slipped her hands up his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. "It's totally your call."

"What about if I tell you I'm thinking about asking Diego to lead a rousting of the caldron?" she asked with a look at her eyes.

"Why?" she asked.

"With the loss of Davina we no longer have the edge over the witches. Not only will a rousting keep up the morale, but it will remind the witches who is in charge." He answered. "I'm also hoping Marcel might join them. Getting back at the witches might do him some good."

"If it will entertain the men and keep then happy along with keeping the witches on their toes then I say have at it." Katie answered then pecked him on the lips.

* * *

Katie stood to the side of the court yard watching as Klaus walked in with Thierry and announced to the hand full of the top men that Thierry had been pardoned. They all clapped and welcomed Thierry home. "Well, you're in a good mood." Marcel said from where he sat at one of the patio tables with a bottle of bourbon and a glass. "You should visit Mystic Falls more often."

"Well, as much as I'd like to I have pressing responsibilities here." Klaus said then got the attention of the people around him. "Now, as you all know the witch Davina is no longer with us. Without Davina we can no longer monitor the activity of our witch neighbors. However, since their harvest failed their magic will soon be gone forever."

Elijah walked up to stand beside Katie with his hand tucked into the pockets of his suit pants. "Was letting Thierry out your idea?"

"No, it was his." Katie answered not looking away from Klaus.

"And the rousting?" Elijah asked.

"Also his idea to keep the witches on their toes and lift morale." She answered seeing Marcel grab his bottle and walk away, not interested in the rousting. "Although it's not working for Marcel not that I thought it would."

* * *

Katie, Elijah, Klaus, Diego and a few of the daywalkers stood in the courtyard looking at the two desiccated daywalkers that were killed at the rousting. A small symbol carved on their foreheads. "Someone will die for this." Klaus said stated.

Elijah kneeled, looking at the forehead of one of the men. "Remarkably, I don't disagree. However I would like to know where they learned such dark magic." Elijah stood up and turned to Klaus who stood next to Katie with his hand on her lower back. "I had hoped never to see that symbol again."

"I recall it is the signature of a fool who once stood against us. Clearly, some upstart witch is salvaging old tricks. I'll do for him as I did the other." Klaus said then walked over to Diego. "Diego, when night falls, I want you to gather every vampire in the quarter. Get me the head of whoever did this and put it on a stick."

"Yeah, that's gonna be a problem." Diego replied and Katie frowned. "Everyone's freaked out man. We haven't had witches killing vampires in a long time. Marcel made sure of that."

"Marcel has run off like a scared child." Klaus replied and clapped his hand down on Diego's shoulder. "You lot are left with me." he took his hand off Diego's shoulder and back away, turning his eyes to the other daywalkers. "Now, who of you will fight to defend our home?" no one said anything. "Not a single one of you will stand with me. So afraid are you of this new threat? You should know better." Klaus looked away from them to Katie to see her giving the daywalkers a frowning glare. "I'll handle this myself."

Katie and Elijah watched Klaus walk out like the man on a mission that he was. Katie looked at the daywalkers, scoffed with a roll of her eyes and started to walk off. "You got something to say, _queen_?" the female daywalker with dark hair spiked up into a mohawk asked.

"Actually yeah, I do." Katie answered as she walked over. "You were all given the privilege of a day light ring to protect this city. And now when you're needed most you tuck your tails and hide? The hell kind of solider cowers from a fight?"

"The kind that doesn't bow to Klaus Mikaelson." The tough looking brunette standing next to the mohawked woman answered. "And Marcel advised us to stay out of the fight with the witches."

"Marcel is stuck in a cloud of grief and not thinking clearly. Or did you all forget how much he cared about Davina?" Katie asked with furrowed brows. "The fact of the matter is your people, your fellow vampires, are being threatened and you're just going to stand back and watch. How is that the right thing to do?"

"Is right because it keeps us safe." Mohawk girl argued.

"Oh my god." Katie laughed with a look at Elijah as she threw her hands up in frustration. "Why do I even bother when it's clear you are all a bunch of selfish nitwits?" as she turned toward the stairs she saw Diego look at her as if he agreed with her then back at his people. Contrary to the tone he took with her at the dinner Klaus threw when they first moved back into the compound, Katie actually liked Diego. Of course he was loyal to Marcel, but he also seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. Elijah followed her up to what she was starting to think of as the common room. She made herself comfortable on the couch and Elijah went to the bar in the corner of the room and poured himself a drink. "Should I have kept my mouth shut?"

"No." Elijah answered without a second thought. "You are their queen and as such you have the right to speak your mind."

"But what if what I have to say isn't the right thing or if I make things worse?" she asked with a sigh. "You and Klaus built this place, you both have experience at being leaders. I'm just a weirdo that lived two lives and hsd never been given authority over anything before."

"Based on what I just witness I believe you will do just fine." Elijah answered honestly as he walked over and sat in the armchair across from her. Katie just grabbed a throw pillow as she leaned her head back then pressed it to her face with a groan. Elijah smirked at her dramatics.

* * *

When night fell Katie started to worry about Klaus and went down to the courtyard to wait and found Elijah pacing with his phone to his ear. When he pulled it away and hung up Katie gave him a look that asked what was wrong. "Rebekah's not answering her phone."

"You worried about her?" Katie asked as she tucked her hands into the front pocket of the dark grey hoodie with a pink Under Armour symbol of the front of it.

"Frankly I'm worried that she had something to do with this. She's very displeased with Niklaus." He told her with a worried frown.

"Well, she does love to conspire against him." Katie said with a tilt of her head.

"Yes and I believe this time she's had help." He told her as he turned his eyes to Thierry, sitting at a patio table by himself in the courtyard littered with other vampires, mostly night walkers lounging around. "Thierry, is it?" Elijah asked as he and Katie walked over to him.

"That's right." Thierry answered skeptically.

"My sister is rather fond of you. Is strange, she's not typically drawn to unremarkable men." Thierry looked at him with fear in his eyes. "Would you care to explain your sudden magnetism?"

"I don't know what you're-" with a woosh Elijah grabbed Theirry by his neck and pinned him to the wall of the arching hallway that led to the front doors.

"You can either tell me what you know or I can distribute tiny pieces of you throughout the quarter." Elijah told him as Katie rushed over to them.

"She asked me to keep and eye out on witch stuff." Thierry answered with a groan. "I found something and when I showed her we were jumped by some guy. He desiccated her with his touch."

Elijah who had loosened his grip a little while Thierry was talking slammed his head back into the wall again. "Like a coward, you left her."

"What was I supposed to do, fight some warlock that took out an original?" Thierry asked in fear of his life.

Katie pushed her hair back out of her face. "Where did you leave Rebekah?"

"The docks, warehouse 57." Thierry answered while looking at Elijah. "I was just doing what she asked." He looked at Katie. "You cannot tell Klaus about this."

Elijah threw Thierry head first into the wall behind them. "I shall take that into consideration." He gave Katie a smirk then started for the doors.

"Take me with you." Elijah turned and gave her a look that told her she was out of her mind. "As much as I like my home I don't feel safe in it without you, Klaus or Rebekah here. It's no secret these people don't like me."

Elijah pondered it for a moment. "You do not leave my side, understand?"

"Yep." She answered popping the p at the end of the word as she headed for the door.

Elijah grabbed her hand stopping her. "I am serious."

"I know, Elijah, but you and your brother need to remember that while I am human and pregnant I'm not made of glass. I know my limits."

He took his hand off her wrist. "Very well then." He pulled the large wooden door open and waved her out.

* * *

They found Rebekah in the warehouse lying in the center of a salt circle with other witchy symbols drawn in salt, and a dead snake inside of it. When they tried to step inside it and get her out they hit an invisible wall. "Of course there would be a boundary spell keeping us out." Katie sighed then kicked the wall.

Elijah saw the symbol on her forehead. "Someone's channeling her. Typically it's a lethal process, but because she's an original, she can't die. Instead she's an endless source of power."

"You wouldn't happen to know how to break this kind of boundary spell would you?" Katie asked and he shook his head, his brown eyes wide with worry. "I'll call Bonnie, you try Sophie." He gave her a nod and they both pulled out their cell phones.

Sophie answered before Bonnie so Katie gave up and listened to Elijah talking to Sophie who was on speaker phone. "You're not listening. We cannot enter the circle. There's some kind of confinement spell or… If I can't remove her, we can't break the link." Elijah explained.

"It's a convoluted spell. It's like a witch's recipe. You can spoil the balance by adding a more potent ingredient, a mystical binding agent." As Sophie spoke, Elijah turned to Katie with wide eyes then kneeled near the circle. "I don't know, volcanic ash, rock salt, anything up to and including eye of newt."

"What about the blood of a witch?" Elijah asked and Katie placed her hands on her stomach.

"Do you have the blood of a witch?" Sophie asked, confused and Elijah hung up on her as he looked from the circle to Katie. "I need a favor."

Without a second thought Katie held her hand out to Elijah and watched as he took it and bit the fleshy part of her hand between her pinky and wrist. Like usual Katie didn't even flinch from the pain his sharp fangs piercing her soft skin caused. When they held her hand over the outer line of salt and dripped her blood on it the salt started to bubble and smoke working its way around the circle back to her blood droplets. "Did it work?" Her question was answered when Elijah stepped into the circle, picked up Rebekah and whooshed her out of it.

"So I'm guessing you want me to keep the fact that Rebekah is conspiring with Thierry to myself?" Katie asked as she slid into the passenger seat of Elijah's Lincoln.

"Yes." Elijah answered as he shut the back driver's side door having laid Rebekah in the back seat. "If you wouldn't mind."

"I don't like keeping secrets from him, but…" she paused as she grabbed the seat belt strap and buckled herself in, "he has asked me to let him worry about Rebekah and to not stress over her. So, I will let you two worry about your sister while I worry about who ever is behind these weird marks on people's heads."

"His name was Papa Tunde." Elijah started then proceeded to tell her about the dark witch and former leader of the French quarter coven in the early twentieth century. How he used sacrificial magic to gain the power needed to make the city the witches once again. But Klaus studied him, figured out his strengths and weakness and in doing so figured out that Papa Tunde was channeling the power of his twin sons, killed them then killed Papa Tunde.

When Rebekah woke up she informed them that it wasn't a copy cat, Papa Tunde was alive.

* * *

"Elijah has informed me that you had a talk with the inner circle." Klaus said as he walked out onto the balcony where Katie was sitting on the patio couch looking though Davina's drawings.

"They poked, I bit back." She answered honestly as she kept her eyes on the drawings she was flipping through.

"He also said you handled yourself well and did a good job of putting them in their place." He said as he took the papers from her hands, shut the large folder they were in and set them on the table.

"Yet they didn't venture out to help you did they?" she asked as he sat down on the couch beside her and pulled her to straddle his lap.

"No," he answered as she rested her hands on his chest and his held her outer thighs, "but you did."

She lifted her eyes to his, a hint of guilt in them. "Are you angry?"

"No." his answer surprised her and her face showed it. "He said you didn't feel safe here without one of us around and I never want you to feel unsafe." His moved his hands to hold her sides over the thick hoodie she still wore. "Now, as for the cowardly vampires, Marcel and I have discussed giving them an ultimatum. Either they stay and prove themselves to me or they get out of my city."

"The only thing I know about an army is when they aren't acting like one." She replied as she moved her hands to hold the sides of his neck. "If you and Marcel think this is what's best then I trust you." he gave her a small smile before he realized her hands were sucking the warmth out of his neck.

"You're hands are like ice, Love, what are you doing out here?" he asked as he took her hands off of his neck and started rubbing them to warm then up.

"Just thinking." She answered. "We never figured out why Davina was drawing Celeste. It couldn't have been to warn us that Sophie was going to use her magic to complete the harvest, there was no magic to consecrate."

"Will you do me a favor and not freeze to death in the process of figuring it out?" he asked with puppy dog eyes.

She laughed. "Sure." With a whoosh he brought her inside, shut the balcony door and set her on her feet near the fire that was lit in the fireplace.

"So would you like to stand with me while I give my speech?" he asked from where he stood behind her with his arms wrapped around her chest.

"No. contrary to what they seem to think, I'm your queen, not theirs." She answered. "I won't be their queen until they respect me and they won't respect me until they respect you. So, you lead the way and I'll follow." She said as she turned in his arms and pecked him on the lips.

* * *

Katie stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard across from the one Klaus stood on, the vampires of the French Quarter gathered below. "Not long ago, you all united against me. You failed. Since then, in my benevolence, I have wiped the slate clean. Yet it seems clear you think that _I_ am the one who needs to earn_ your _respect, _your_ loyalty. You're mistaken." Klaus spoke, looking down at the vampires. "It is _you_ who must prove yourselves to _me_. Our community is under attack. I require soldiers. I need warriors, not cowards." He held his hands out at the people below. "Each of you has a decision to make. You either fight, alongside me or you leave…Now."

The vampires started murmuring amongst themselves, no one moving until Thierry stepped up and looked up at Klaus. "We don't owe you anything." The vampires stopped talking and looked at Thierry. "If staying in the quarter means living under your rule, I'd just as soon get the hell out." He turned and looked at Diego who gave him a look that told him he wasn't leaving. Thierry shrugged and left. A little over a fourth of the vampires followed his lead. Katie noticed that none of the people that she had spoken to earlier that day left with Thierry and she couldn't help but wonder if she'd made a difference or if they stayed because Marcel was still here.

* * *

Klaus and Marcel shared a drink at the bar in the corner of the common room while Katie sat on the sofa and Sophie stood near the lighted bookshelf that was built into the wall on each side of the fire place and held records and a record player. "I've got no reason to help you, and I sure as hell don't have a reason to help him." Sophie told Klaus with a motion at Marcel.

"Now, now, don't be difficult, luv." Klaus told Sophie as he moved to sit at the table in the room. "You'll only live as long as you're of use to us and right now, your best use is to explain why a witch I killed 100 years ago has come back for revenge."

"Come on, resurrected witches with vast power?" Sophie told them as if they should be able to figure it out. "It's the harvest. Four girls were meant to die and be reborn. I don't know how, but someone jacked that power and they used it to bring back 4 witches…just not the right ones."

"So there's still a chance. If we can get that power back, we can save Davina." Marcel said with an almost excited look between Klaus and Sophie.

"Let's concentrate on the immediate problem, shall we?" Klaus asked. "Papa Tunde wants revenge. He'll continue to attack us, channeling power from the vampires he sacrifices. He kill, he grows more dangerous. So, how do I end him?" Klaus asked talking with his hands as he thought out loud.

"He needs sacrifices to gain power." Sophie pointed out. "Keep him from killing anymore nightwalkers, that's a start."

"Unless…" Klaus looked up at Marcel, "he finds the one place with a load of vampires ready to be sacrificed."

"The garden." Katie thought out loud.

"The garden." Klaus confirmed with a nod as he stood up and he and Marcel headed for the door. "Katie-"

"I'll stay here." she told him and he gave her a thankful nod before he disappeared out of her sight.

* * *

Katie was eating a small dinner in their quarters when Klaus came in and sat down across from her with a glass of blood in his hand. "He got to the garden and drained every last soul in it."

She took the last bite of her salad and pushed the empty bowl away. "So now what do we do?"

"I say we figure that out in the morning." He sounded tired as he lifted his eyes to hers. With that one look she knew exactly what he needed. So as soon as he was done with his glass of blood she walked around the table and held his hand out to hers. He put his in hers and let her lead him to their bedroom.

"I need a small favor." She held up her hand showing him the two puncture holes where Elijah bit her. It didn't hurt that much when Elijah first bit her, but it was sore enough now that she couldn't put constant pressure on it.

"I'm surprised Elijah didn't heal you." Klaus bit his wrist and held it out to her.

"He offered, I declined." She said then grabbed his hand and arm and drank enough to heal her hand, waited for his wrist to heal then licked it clean.

"I love it when you do that." he told her as he pulled his sleeve back down.

"What, drink from you?" she asked as she wiped the corners of her mouth.

"The way you lick it when you're done." He answered.

She just smiled as a hint of a blush colored her cheeks. "Lay in the center of the bed, arms outstretched and eyes closed please." She told him and he gave her a curious look. "Just do it." she told him then disappeared into the bathroom. When she came back out she found him lying as she'd asked, minus his shirt. "I didn't ask you to take your shirt off." She laughed.

"You didn't ask me not to either." He pointed out with a smirk keeping his eyes closed. "Will it be a problem?"

Katie picked up his shirt from where he had put it on the bed and replaced her own with it, loving the spicy scent of his cologne. "Nope. You know I love the view." She answered as she sat down beside him, squeezed some hand cream into her palm and rubbed her hands together to warm it up before she picked up his hand and worked the cream into his skin.

"What are you doing?" he asked only to get shushed by her which made him chuckle. However, his laugh was cut off when she dug her thumbs into the heel of his palm and slid them outward. She repeated the action up his arm, halfway to his elbow, then back down and focused on one of her favorite parts of his body.

After spending a good ten minutes kneading every muscle and joint of his left hand she straddled him and kissed her ways across his chest then sat down at his right side. Another content sigh left his relaxed, parted lips when she started massing his other hand. When she'd spent just as much time on his right hand as she did the left she started working her way up his arm, but before she could massage any further he grabbed the back of her neck with one hand, wrapped the other around her waist and rolled her over so that he was hovering above her. "You're too good to me." his blue eyes looked lovingly into hers.

"I would argue that I don't show how much I appreciate you often enough." She argued as she slid her hands from his sides that she'd grabbed out of instinct, up to rest on his chest, feeling the beating of his heart.

"You don't have to. It's in your eyes every time you look at me." he said then caught her bottom lip between his and she sighed into the gentle yet intense kiss.

* * *

Katie sat on the bed watching Klaus get dressed for the first public service at Saint Ann's since Sean massacred his fellow seminary students and himself. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me and get out of the compound for a bit?"

"Yeah." She answered. "We still don't know where Papa Tunde is. Plus, I stopped being a devout Christian somewhere around 1822." She slipped off the bed and walked over to him as he shrugged on his jacket.

"So you said that these people won't respect you until they respect me." he started as he put his hands on her hips and Katie hummed a positive answer. "I feel like I have forced the position of queen of the French quarter on you."

"Maybe a little." She agreed with a so-what shrug.

"Do you even want to be their queen?" he asked.

"I don't feel like I deserve the position, but you're their king and I'm your partner in crime. It only makes sense that I'm queen." She reasoned.

"Yes, but is it something you want?" he asked with a pointed look.

"I haven't thought much about it to be honest, so I don't know if it's something I want." She shrugged with a frown.

"Okay, to help you decide, why don't we use today as a trial run." He offered.

"What do you mean?" she asked with a confused shake of her head.

"While Marcel and I are out, if a problem arises Diego will come to you with it." he told her and she just stared at him with wide eyes. "You don't have to. If you feel better with how things are now, with you behind the scenes, I will be fine with that too."

She thought about it for a minute. She never saw herself as a leader but since coming to New Orleans she'd been helping as Klaus said, behind the scenes, but if she stepped up as Queen she'd be putting herself directly in the lime light working with Diego and Marcel. Was that really something she wanted? "I want to stay behind the scenes. If I change my mind later I'll let you know." She answered then looked at the clock. "You better get going or you'll be late." He pecked her on the lips then left.

* * *

Katie was bundled up in a hoodie and yoga pants, reading a book on the private balcony when a knock sounded from the door of their quarters. So she closed her book and answered it revealing Diego on the other side. "Hey, Klaus isn't here."

"I know, but I thought you should know the witches left us a package in the courtyard." He told her then jerked his head for her to follow him.

"Did Klaus ask you to keep me in the loop?" Katie asked sounding confused as she followed him.

"Na, but you're our queen now right?" he asked as they walked down the stairs.

"Seems that way." As they walked into the court yard and the bright white suit of Papa Tunde caught her eyes. "What the hell…?" she asked taking in the slit across the dead man's neck.

"Either our witch problems are over, or they're just getting started." Diego told her as he too looked down at the body.

"I'm gonna go with just getting started." Katie said, noticing that the symbol he was laying on was the one he used to channel the power of his offerings. "He doesn't have the mark on his head." she thought out loud.

"Yeah, so?" Diego asked sounding more confused than snarky.

"So whoever killed him thankfully didn't absorb his power." She answered. "Which was a lot considering he drained the entire garden last night." She looked over the body in thought. "It also mean's he most likely didn't become anyone's sensei during the short time he was on our side. No smart witch would let power like that go unclaimed." She looked up from the body to Diego. "Sorry if you had friends in the garden."

"I didn't." he answered. "But a few did walk away."

"Well, for what it's worth I'm glad you stayed." She told him as she tucked her hands into the pocket of her hoodie then looked at the other inner circle vampires standing around the courtyard, including the two women that had sassed her the day before. "All of you."

"Yeah, well, getting called a coward by a human tends to make you rethink your actions." Mohawk girl said with a tilt of her head and a shrugged shoulder.

"I see my lovely queen is already on top of things." Klaus said as he walked into the courtyard with Marcel.

"If by on top of things you mean gawking and trying to figure our how someone as powerful as him ended up with a slit throat and left in our courtyard then yeah, I'm on top of things." Katie answered a little sarcastically.

Elijah came downstairs and kneeled down by the body. After a few minutes of Elijah looking Tunde over Klaus asked, "Can I get you anything brother, a magnifying glass, a pipe perhaps?"

"Do you have a theory that you'd like to share with us, Niklaus?" Elijah asked.

"Back in the day, if the witches wanted to send a threat, they'd just kill a chicken and leave it on your doorstep." Marcel spoke up.

"It's a rather large and ominous chicken, wouldn't you say?" Elijah asked as he stood up.

"Papa Tunde defeated Rebekah with ease, almost got the two of us as well. If he was supposed to be their prized fighter, why leave him for dead in our front yard?" Klaus asked.

Before any one else could say anything Rebekah walked in. "Well, don't you all look cheery?" she asked as she joined the circle around Papa Tunde. "Listen to this. A girl literally exploded from a grave today as Sabine was giving her tour of the city of the dead." Everyone perked up giving her their full attention. "It was Monique Deveraux."

"What?" both Katie and Klaus asked at the same time.

"The tourists thought it was part of the show, but the witches are celebrating like it's some kind of bloody miracle." Rebekah told them. Katie realized then that Papa Tunde's death redirected the magic that raised him back to the rightful owner, Monique.

"Maybe it is. They think that all hope is lost, but now suddenly a harvest girl is resurrected." Marcel said, his brain taking the same path as Katie's. "This is how we're gonna get Davina back. Kill the witch that took her place."

"Well, Davina was drawing pictures of a dead witch." Katie spoke up making everyone look at her. "It stands to reason that Celeste could be the witch that took her place."

"First Papa Tunde returns to settle old scores." Klaus said with a point to the dead Papa Tunde, then pointed at Elijah. "Now your murdered lover is back. This isn't witches attacking vampires. They are declaring war on _us_."

"Awesome." Katie sighed letting her head fall forward.

* * *

Katie was in the kitchen making herself an early lunch when Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah found her. "Okay, what's with the family gathering?" she asked with suspicious eyes.

"We would like to talk to you about your safety here." Elijah answered.

"Mkay." She drawled.

"With three more resurrected witches out and about we think it would be best if you left the quarter for a little while." Klaus told her.

"So, as your future sister in law, I'd like to accompany you to the plantation house." Rebekah said with a hopeful smile.

Katie looked at Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah then back at Klaus. "And you all agree that this is what's best?" she asked and he nodded. "Then I'll go."

"That seems too easy." Rebekah pointed out skeptically.

"Well, you guys have a war on your hands. You need all hands on deck and my puny human ones, fighting skills and magic muting bombs aside, are more of an obstacle than an asset." She pointed out.

"Magic muting bombs?" Rebekah asked with a confused face.

"Bonnie gave me a going away present." She explained. "Bombs like the vervain one Elena used on you after Rose and what's his face kidnapped her." she told Elijah. "Only these are full of a crushed herb that when inhaled by a witch will mute their power. But I only have three and I need to save them for when, slash if my back is ever against the wall."

"Leave it to the Bennett witch." Rebekah said clearly impressed.

"You two can't think clearly if you're constantly worrying about me and the baby." she told Klaus and Elijah then looked at Rebekah. "So I'll go pack a bag and meet you out front. I'm driving."

"But your car's a junker." Rebekah argued.

"It is not a junker, it's well loved and the only thing I've ever earned and paid for myself. I just got it back, I'm driving." Katie argued making Klaus and Elijah smirk at her as she left the kitchen, her bowl of lunch in her hand.

* * *

"I had hoped to not spend another night in this house again any time soon." Katie complained as she and Rebekah rocked in the rocking chairs on the front porch, taking in the cold night air.

"Yet you agreed to come here." Rebekah pointed out. "With me even though you don't trust me."

"I don't trust you when I comes to your attempts to thwart Klaus's rule, but I do trust you when it comes to keeping this baby, and therefore me, safe." Katie corrected her then hugged herself. Even in the thick hoodie she was freezing. "I'm gonna turn in for the night."

Instead of going to sleep Katie sat at the piano in a small room playing what her fingers could remember of what her mother had taught her. When her phone started ringing she pulled it out of her pocket to see that it was Elijah. "Hey, what's up?"

"Where are you?" he asked sounding worried.

"The plantation house where I'm supposed to be." She answered with a frown.

"Where's Rebekah?" he asked.

"Outside last I checked. Elijah, what's wrong?" she asked as she stood from the piano headed to the front door.

"You were right. Celeste is back." he told her as he pulled the front door open. "Niklaus, Rebekah, you're all in danger." As she tried to walk out the door slammed shut and Katie yelped. "Katie, you have to find Rebekah and stay with her until I get there."

"Elijah, I can't. Those stupid witches are trapping me in the house" she told him as she rushed to the back door only for it to catch fire making her yelp and jump back. "Damn it!"

"I'm on my way." Elijah hung up. Every exit she tried burst into flames, the door to the rooms she ran through shut behind her until she was trapped in the piano room that wasn't on fire, but when she tried to kick the window open a line of fire spread along the walls completely trapping her. Not knowing what else to do she took off the hoodie she was wearing and the tank top underneath, poured the glass of sweet tea she'd been drinking while playing the piano on the tank top then lowered herself to the floor where less smoke was likely to be. Even with the filter she'd created smoke still managed to make its way into her lungs making her cough. She was starting to feel light headed when Elijah whooshed in through a window, scooped her up, whooshed her out into the fresh air and laid her on the hard drive way out front. "Where's Rebekah?"

"I don't know." Katie answered as she sat up still coughing. "Last I saw she was on the front porch." He grabbed the hoodie she'd been clutching in her hand and pulled it over her head then helped her stand up and bit his wrist. She drank enough to heal her smoke ridden lungs then pushed it away.

"Aww you healed her. How sweet." the voice of Sabine made them both turn from the house to see her walking up the drive to them. Elijah pushed Katie behind him with a defensive stance. "You won't hurt me. I'm the only one alive who can break the curse on Hayley's family." Katie had no idea what curse she was talking about, but at the moment she didn't care because another redheaded witch walked up to stand beside Sabine who Katie guessed was really Celeste. "And Genevieve knows where your sister is." Another older witch joined the women. "Bastianna has Klaus tucked away someplace safe. He's suffering horribly, I might add, and all because you chose to save the little human instead of your own blood."

Elijah took a few steps toward Celeste and she held her hand up, the sickening crack of bones breaking filled the air a second before Elijah yelled out in pain and sank to his knees. "Stop!" Katie yelled as she rushed to Elijah's side holding his shoulder, wishing she could help, but she'd stupidly left the grenades in her car. "Stop hurting him."

"Oh I'm going to do more than hurt him." Celeste told her then looked at Elijah. "What a horrific ending," Celeste closed her hand into a fist causing Elijah to yell out again, "to your pathetic diseased family." Celeste opened her hand and closed it again torturing Elijah. "I guess always isn't forever after all." Celeste twisted her fist snapping his neck before the three witches walked away. Not knowing what else to do Katie sat down next to Elijah and waited for him to wake up.

* * *

"Marcel!" Elijah yelled as he and Katie walked into the compound courtyard. "Where is my brother?"

"I've got guys out looking for him right now." Marcel answered with his hands held out in a calming manner. When two men stepped in front of Marcel, Elijah grabbed them and threw them aside.

"Was that really necessary?" Katie asked with a frown at Elijah's temper.

"Klaus threw one of his classic temper tantrums, snapped my neck, tried to take on a coven of witches by himself. He got dropped." Marcel explained. "I don't know where he is or how to find him."

"They also have Rebekah." Elijah informed him then turned his eyes to the vampires around them. "Every! One of you, will help me to find them." He pointed at the vampires them looked at Marcel. "I'm going to kill them all."

* * *

Katie was getting out of the shower from washing the stench of smoke from her hair and skin when she heard a knock on the door. So she threw on a robe and answered it to see Elijah. So she stepped aside and jerked her head for him to come inside. "Are you okay?"

"Physically yeah, mentally not so much." She answered as she went to the bedroom and grabbed a tank top and a pair of pajama bottoms. She changed in the bathroom and came back out to find Elijah leaning on the archway. "So the night walkers are looking for Klaus and Rebekah?" She asked as she sat down on the bed and pulled her leg up on it.

"Yes, I was going to join them, but I didn't want to leave you unprotected." He told her as he walked further into the room. "They are originals, they can't die."

"But I can." She added. "Is that why you saved me? Because they can't die but this baby and I can?"

"Yes." He answered with a nod. "However I also gave you and Niklaus my word. I will not let anything happen to you or the child."

"Well, whatever your reasons…thank you." she told him with a tired blink.

"I will let you get some sleep." He turned to leave.

But she stopped him, "Elijah?" he turned to her with questioning eyes. "I really don't mean to send the wrong signal here and I have no right to ask after leaving you in the bayou with a werewolf bite, but I haven't spent a night by my self since moving here and with the witches after revenge…" she shook her head. "Never mind."

"I will stay, if that's what you're asking." He told her seriously.

"It's what I'm asking." She told him with a nod that he returned as he watched her slide under the sheet and comforter. He laid on the other side of the bed on top of the comforter facing her. After laying in the dark for a while Katie asked, "What curse was Sabine or Celeste or whatever she wants to be called, talking about?"

"Hayley's family has been cursed to spend most of their time as wolves, only being human on the full moon." He answered. Katie couldn't help but wonder why that meant so much to him that Celeste though it was enough to keep her alive. She knew Elijah well enough to know that he'd either given Hayley his word that he'd help her break the curse on her people in return for helping him during his time in the bayou or he'd developed feelings for Hayley. "You can ask whatever it is you're not asking. I hide nothing from you."

"Why doest the fact that Celeste is the only one who can break that curse matter to you so much that it would keep you from killing her?" she asked. "I mean why would you go out of your way to break a curse on werewolves without there being something in it for you or someone you care about?"

"I have given Hayley my word that I would help her people." He answered. "I also started courting her during the week you were gone with Niklaus." Forgetting that he could see her even though she couldn't see him she smiled. "This pleases you?"

"If she brings you even the slightest bit of happiness then, yes, it pleases me." she answered then yawned. "The sooner I go to sleep the sooner I can help you find Klaus. So, goodnight, Elijah."

"Goodnight."


End file.
